


Expert Physicality

by shaenie



Series: Adapting to Physicality [4]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-21
Updated: 2016-11-21
Packaged: 2018-09-01 06:48:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 68,878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8613652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shaenie/pseuds/shaenie





	

Bruce is uncomfortable trying to sleep bound down on his stomach, but there is simply no possibility of him sleeping on his back after the merciless caning he’d been given, so Tony uses a long length of chain to arrange it so that he can sleep on his side. He ends up as the big spoon, a little to his own surprise. He would have expected Tony to want to curl around the mass of welts and bruises that are his back, ass, and thighs. But Tony tucks himself under one of Bruce’s arms when it’s time to sleep and seems perfectly content to be half pinned down by Bruce’s body because of the way Bruce is bound down.

Bruce wakes at the usual time, and is sort of overwhelmed with an odd kind of tenderness at having Tony curled against the front of his body, asleep in his arms. It’s dark in the room -- the curtains had been drawn back to hide the Saint Andrew’s cross before Tony had put them both to bed, but after Tony had oiled Bruce’s back thoroughly enough to leave Bruce twisting and writhing and in tears -- and Bruce shifts slightly to see if he had awakened because he has to go to the bathroom. He doesn’t, but even that much shifting is enough to wake up the white wall of pain that is the back of his body, and he has to catch his breath in several short, harsh bursts to keep from starting to cry just a little at the wash of pain. It’s wonderful, it feels wonderful, and he loves it, but it still hurts like a bastard, hurts worse than it had hurt while Coulson had been doing it to him, and Bruce knows that’s a matter of endorphins and stiffness, and there is nothing to be done about it. It will fade over the next few days, but for this day, at least, he’s going to be halfway incapacitated by the pain.

He doesn’t have it in him to be sorry.

Once he’s still again and the pain fades into a more distant background awareness, he concentrates on the fact that his cock is pressed up against Tony’s ass, and Bruce isn’t entirely sure if he’d been hard before he’d fought down the waves of pain from his back, but he’s hard now. He wonders if Tony would let Bruce fuck him, wonders if he would actually be able to do the fucking right now, with his back in the shape that it’s in, and then closes his eyes and drifts back to sleep with the scent of Tony’s hair in his nose.

He wakes up the second time, not sure how long it’s been, only that his back is mostly quiescent, and feels Tony shifting in front of him, moving slow and careful, as though he doesn’t mean to wake Bruce, as he eases out from under Bruce’s arm. He remembers not to shift and wake up his back, but he murmurs, “Tony?” mostly as a request for reassurance than as a request for information. 

Tony says, “Hey, good morning. I didn’t mean to wake you.” He’s freed himself from under Bruce’s bound arm, and twists around to lie facing Bruce on the bed. “I thought you’d want to sleep yourself out after yesterday.”

“I’m alright,” Bruce says. “I mean, I’m not really tired anymore. I was already awake once, but let myself drift off again when I realized I didn’t have to get up.” He doesn’t ask where Tony had been going. He assumes Tony will tell him if he wants Bruce to know.

“I have to take a piss, and I’m in serious need of coffee,” Tony says easily, and leans forward to slide his fingers into Bruce’s hair and push it back from his brow. “Do you want to get up now, or do you think you might want to stay tied down?”

Honestly, what Bruce wants depends a lot on Tony. If Tony is going to get up and leave the room for any length of time, Bruce would just as soon get up and go with him. He recognizes the neediness in the desire, knows that he hurts badly enough not to want to be far away from Tony, he’s always been like this after being hurt. He’s less sure of what Tony will want him to feel.

He takes a deep breath, and tells himself that Tony would want him to do whatever it feels right to do, and says, “If you’re getting up, I want to get up, too. If you’re coming back to bed, I’ll wait for you here.” He hears the faint edge of strain in his voice, but can’t quite banish it.

Tony hears it, too. His voice is a little sharp when he asks, “Are you hurting too much, Bruce?”

“No, not exactly too much,” Bruce says. “Though it hurts a lot, and will hurt a lot more once I’m up and moving. It’s just that while I’m this hurt, I don’t want to be… I mean. I’d like to stay close to you.” Bruce feels his cheeks heat, but it’s probably still too dark in the room for Tony to see it.

“You know I’ll have to oil it again this morning before you move around too much,” Tony says, his voice thoughtful. “Can you wait here until I drink one cup of coffee, and then I’ll be right back with you? I wouldn’t normally make you wait, Bruce, but I didn’t get enough caffeine yesterday, and my head aches like a bitch. One of the hazards of the addiction.”

Bruce assumes that means that Tony has a caffeine headache, and feels a little unsure about waiting, but he doesn’t want Tony to be in pain either. “I can wait, if you’re not going to be gone long.”

“Long enough to take a piss, drink a cup of coffee, and take some Excedrin,” Tony says. “Ten minutes tops. If you don’t want to wait, Bruce, you don’t have to. You can come with me. I just am not going to be doing anything interesting for the next few minutes, and I want to oil your back before you move around too much.”

“I can wait,” Bruce repeats, keeping the edginess out of his voice this time deliberately. “As long as it’s not long.”

“I’ll use the Keurig, and I’ll bring my coffee back in here to drink it,” Tony says softly, and runs his hand down Bruce’s side, fingers slotting into place along his ribs for a few long seconds. “Okay?”

“Okay, Tony,” Bruce agrees, and tries to get his body to relax back into the softness of the bed. The tension in him at being left alone is just tightening his back, which is the last thing he wants to do right now.

Tony leans in and plants a kiss on his forehead, and rolls out of bed and to his feet, headed in the direction of the bathroom. He doesn’t bother to close the door or anything, and even though the bedroom is not a small room, Bruce can still hear Tony pissing from where he is. For some reason, the very mundane regularity of the sound is enough to loosen Bruce’s muscles a little more, and his back is still a dull ache, but it hasn’t woken up to its fullest potential for pain. As long as Bruce holds still, it won’t.

Tony leaves the bathroom and crosses by the foot of the bed. “Three or four minutes, Bruce,” he says, throwing a glance at him, and then striding naked out into the main room of the penthouse. He doesn’t shut the bedroom door either, but the room still has enough soundproofing that Bruce can’t really hear what Tony is doing out there.

He occupies his mind with wondering about what Steve is doing right now, and how _his_ back and ass feel, and whether Steve is going to be aching the way Bruce is, or whether the super soldier serum will have taken care of the problem already. If Phil had gone at Steve with the same force and thoroughness with which he had gone at Bruce, Bruce would suspect that Steve would still be showing at least a few marks this morning. Not certain of it, but suspects. But Phil hadn’t.

No, Phil had gone much easier on Steve than he had on Bruce, both in force and in duration. He wonders if they’ll see either Phil or Steve at all today. It’s Monday, so normally, he’d expect Phil would have to go to work, but he wouldn’t be surprised if Phil chooses not to treat this as a normal workday. He had gotten to have Steve yesterday in a way that he’d never been able to have him before, and he’d taken Steve away with him. That had been in the mid-afternoon. There is no telling what else the two of them had done once they had left the penthouse. Bruce just can’t hazard a guess.

Tony returns to the bedroom with a ceramic mug that is steaming energetically. He says, “Lights, twenty percent, Jarvis,” and very gentle light comes up in the room, enough for Bruce to be able to see Tony by, but not enough to dazzle his eyes. Tony is squinting, still, as though the rest of the penthouse had been too bright for him. His brow is furrowed in discomfort. He really does have a headache. He sips cautiously at his coffee, apparently finds it to be a drinkable temperature, and takes several long swallows. Then he sets the cup on the bedside table and sinks onto the side of the bed in front of Bruce.

“If you unchain me, I might be able to help your headache,” Bruce offers, unhappy at Tony’s clear discomfort. “I can rub your temples. I know where some pressure points are.”

“You’d have to sit up for that,” Tony says, frowning. “I don’t want you sitting up until I’m taking you into the other room to oil your back. I can see how still you’re being, Bruce.”

Bruce barely stops himself from shrugging in response. Instead he says, “I’m hurting, but I’m not complaining.”

“Is this the worst you’ve ever had?” Tony wants to know. His eyes have lost that wincing look, so either the aspirin, coffee, or low lighting must be helping.

Bruce thinks about it for several long, deliberate moments. “Yes,” he says finally. “I think it is.” It’s hard to remember for sure, but he had always been careful when he’d let people hurt him, before. He had always gone in with set limits. He hadn’t limited Phil at all.

“Is that a good thing, or a bad thing?” Tony asks, frowning.

Bruce smiles a little. “It’s a good thing,” he says, even knowing as he says it that he really is going to be working at a severe disadvantage for today, at least. “I don’t have to worry about my safety with you. That’s something I’ve never really had to this degree. My first dominant, when I was still just a kid, I trusted pretty thoroughly, but he never even tried to hurt me this much. He wasn’t the same degree of sadist that you or Phil are. And after that, I always worked out the limit of what I would take before anything else. I couldn’t afford to hurt this much. I still had to get myself home and get to school the next day or the lab, or whatever. This is the first time I’ve ever been able to put myself entirely into someone else’s hands. The first time I haven’t had to worry about the next day, because I knew you’d take care of me through it.”

“And all of yesterday was good for you?” Tony asks. “You never at any point thought that it might be a good idea to stop.”

“It never even crossed my mind,” Bruce says, and smiles when Tony reaches out to twine his fingers with Bruce’s. “I’m stiff right now, from sleeping, and I don’t have any real endorphins in my system. I hurt. But it will be better once you start oiling me and the pain starts to feed into itself to get my system started making some endorphins. I’ll be too sore for a lot of things today, but it was worth it. I knew what I was getting into.”

Tony nods, and picks up and drains his coffee cup, tipping it back far enough that Bruce can watch his throat move as he swallows. It’s nice to look at. Bruce feels his cock starting to stir a little just watching it. Tony sets the cup aside, and then leans over Bruce, tugging the comforter off of him from the top down, until only Bruce’s feet and calves are covered. Tony looks at him for a few seconds, and then reaches under Bruce’s bound arm and closes his fist around Bruce’s cock.

Bruce gasps in surprise, feels his body tense, and then gasps again, louder, as his back wakes up and the pain recoils through him. Tony watches him with hooded eyes, not stroking Bruce, but just holding his cock, and Bruce shivers with the pain and tries to keep his body still, even though Tony’s hand wrapped around his hard cock makes him want to rock his hips.

“Well, that is at least a little reassuring,” Tony says, smiling faintly as he looks at Bruce’s face and slowly begins to move his hand. “That you can get hard for me reassures me.”

Bruce shudders at Tony’s hand around his cock, and his back blazes into bright and painful life. Bruce moans, a little in pleasure, but mostly in pain, but doesn’t try to stop Tony, doesn’t even think of it, just lets Tony’s hand around his cock build the pleasure up so that it’s enough sensation to half-drown the pain beating through the back of his body. When he moans again, it’s about half and half, and Tony releases him, which makes Bruce whimper softly. Tony’s hands go to work at his wrists, freeing him, and then shove the comforter down the rest of the way to free his ankles.

“Can you get up?” Tony asks him, his hands stroking along Bruce’s thighs now, close to his cock, but not touching it.

“Yes,” Bruce says, and then rolls onto his belly in preparation to getting up to his knees. His back wakes all the way up with the motion, screaming in pain, and Bruce feels every muscle in his body tremble at the searing rush of it. His arms feel too weak, but he manages to get them under him and push himself up to his knees. He knee walks slowly to the edge of the bed, each motion making his thighs, ass, and back thunder with pain, so hard and so loud that he can feel it in his ears as his pulse pounds along with the pain. Tony captures one arm and then slides off the side of the bed to take his other arm. Bruce leans against him, helpless to stop himself, his head spinning with the pain as his stiff muscles wake up and inform him of how badly they had been abused the day before. Tony catches him as he slides forward off the bed, and his knees are too loose to hold his weight, so Tony ends up half holding him up, with Bruce leaning against his chest and Tony’s hands trying to keep him upright without touching him anywhere that might hurt him. Eventually, Tony gets his arm around Bruce’s waist, low on his back, where Phil had avoided hitting him, and even still, the edges of his arm are grazing the lowermost bruises on his back and the uppermost stripes across his ass.

Bruce starts to try to lower himself down to his knees, but Tony holds him up. “Just stay up, Bruce, I’m not sure I’ll be able to get you back up without hurting you if you go down now.” There is an edge to Tony’s voice that Bruce would like to be able to address and reassure him, but he doesn’t have enough mind left to deal with Tony’s concern. All his mind is focused on staying on his feet and feeling the pain spasm down the back of his body and of the feel of his cock, still hard, despite or because of the pain, swaying in front of his body as Tony walks him toward the bathroom and the linen closet with the massage table in it.

Bruce lets Tony guide him almost blindly while he methodical tightens the muscles of his back and ass and relaxes them, again and again, working out some of the stiffness while he walks, or more accurately shuffles, alongside Tony. It helps, only a little, but enough so that his head is no longer drowning in the pain, but only a little swimmy with it by the time they make it to the massage table.

The table isn’t that tall, and Tony helps him get his knee up onto it, and Bruce manages to get the rest of his body up and situated, at least until he can collapse along the length of it, his cock pressed tight to his belly, and he shudders a little in relief at being able to be still again, all his muscles going lax and easy for a few moments, even though he knows what is coming, and knows it will hurt more than just moving had hurt in a few minutes. It will hurt, but he knows it will help, too, it will help him move past the flat pain and into the feeling of floating on it, in it, letting it surround him and take him over.

“Bruce,” Tony says, still with that edge to his voice. “Do I need to tie you down?”

Bruce struggles to think about the question seriously, though his mind feels like a guttering candle in a high wind, and finally says, “It will make it easier for you, I think, but I don’t know that it matters for me, Tony.”

“Why easier for me if it doesn’t matter to you?” Tony wants to know.

“Because,” Bruce says thickly. “Because I am going to hurt just as much either way, but you can tie me and be more sure that I’m not going to jerk around under your hands.”

“You didn’t jerk around when I oiled you yesterday,” Tony says.

“I hadn’t slept on it then, hadn’t stiffened up, and still had all the endorphins in my system. It hurts more than it did then, but it will be better once you get into it a little way.” And then, because he feels like he ought to warn Tony, adds, “I’m going to cry and maybe even scream a little, but you shouldn’t stop once you start. I’m at the bottom of the ladder now, and I need to be pushed up. On the bottom, it’s just pain, but once I am pushed up a little way, it will start to be more.”

“More pain?” Tony asks.

“Yes, but more like the pain I like,” Bruce tries to explain. He knows he’s not doing a very good job of explaining, but he can’t do any better yet. He’s trembling with the effort it had taken to walk from the bedroom to here, and with the pain that is still arcing across his back and ass and thighs, and even still, his cock is hard, and the pain is some of the worst he’s ever had, but that only means it can be worked back up to some of the best he’s ever had. “Trust me, please,” Bruce says. “Trust me, Tony, I need your hands on me.”

There is a click of a cap opening, and Bruce recognizes it as one of the bottles of massage oil being opened, and some tension he hadn’t known he was holding onto drains out of him, so that he’s still trembling, still shaking, but is also absolutely ready for the pain of Tony’s hands on his aching skin.

First though, Tony jerks something out from the top of the massage table, and Bruce gets a quick glimpse of what looks a little like a velcro blood pressure cuff, before Tony wraps it around his right wrist. “Raise your head up,” Tony says a little gruffly, and Bruce realizes he’s resting his head on his left wrist, and lifts his head so that Tony can wrap the velcro restraint on that side of the table around his left wrist. It leaves him bound down, but not tightly. He still has enough play in the restraints to drag his arms under his head and rest his face against his forearms.

“Tony,” he begs.

“Hush, Bruce,” Tony says, and ten seconds later Tony’s hands press down against the middle of his back and slip upward, everything slick with oil. Bruce’s back arches in pain, which actually causes him more pain than the press of Tony’s hands had, and he lets out a low and miserable moan as he forces himself back down flat. Then Tony goes to work on him for real, and for a while, for the first little while, Bruce struggles helplessly under the pressure of Tony’s hands, tears streaming from his eyes and helpless little sobs jerking their way out of his throat at the harsh tug of Tony’s calloused hands against his tender back, and it goes on and on, long enough that Bruce is jerking a little against the restraints, trying not to twist out from under Tony’s hands, but then it eases, not all at once, not like tipping from pain to pleasure in one easy instant, but slowly, so that the pain is less and the oil feels smoother, more slick against his skin, until the feel of Tony’s callouses on his skin feel like caresses instead of scrapes, and then finally it is enough, Bruce is loose enough and his body is gentled enough that it’s good, and Bruce lets out a low and helplessly spooling moan, his cock aching where it’s pressed beneath him against the table.

“Better?” Tony asks, sounding the faintest bit relieved.

“Yes, better, good, Tony, thank you,” Bruce husks out.

Tony laughs a little, but says, “Don’t thank me yet, we haven’t gotten to your ass or thighs.”

“But it’s enough,” Bruce says, “You’ve dragged it past the first pain, and I’ll do better with the rest.”

And Bruce does. He still cries and jerks a little when Tony drizzles more oil onto his hands and moves down to the curves of Bruce’s ass, but it doesn’t last as long and it doesn’t scrape as close to pain as that first press had, and Bruce is moaning inside of a couple of minutes this time, and rocking his hips a little, not enough to actually rub his cock against the table -- they hadn’t put down any towels this time, and Bruce has some kind of cloudy idea that it would be bad manners if he were to come across the leather of the massage table -- but just enough to press himself against the table and then lift, press and lift, and when Tony gets to his thighs Bruce lets out a little scream of surprise at his touch against the first of the stripes, but settles down again almost immediately, his back and ass feeling warm and painful and good enough that he can take the pain of his thighs without the need to try to jerk away. Tony’s hands linger on his thighs, and then travel up across his ass again, while Bruce makes little breathless noises and tries not to rub off against the table, and then to his back again, laying down another coat of oil until Bruce is writhing a little under his hands, the pain both awakened and dragged sideways by Tony’s hands, so that it still hurts, yes, it will hurt all day, if not longer, but it feels good again too, Bruce’s muscles loose, his body accepting of the pain, floating along within it, so that Bruce’s head is swimmy again, but this time with the desire to come and the coveted feel of Tony’s hands on his body.

“Okay,” Tony says finally. “Okay, I believe you, now, I’ll listen to you next time,” and his voice is low and tight and heated.

Bruce chokes out a little laugh and presses his cock hard against the massage table beneath him. “I want to come,” he whispers softly, and Tony’s hands go away. Bruce turns his head so that he can see what Tony is doing, and he’s wiping his hands with a small white towel. His expression is thoughtful, his gaze still wandering up and down the back of Bruce’s body a little hungrily. Bruce rocks his hips a little harder, just pressing his cock down against the surface of the table, not really trying to rub off against it, but it’s tempting. Tony discards the hand towel and reaches up to free Bruce’s wrists from the velcro restraints.

“Can you stand up and walk now?” Tony asks, and Bruce nods and pushes himself up enough to ease his legs down off the table, coming to rest more or less steadily on his feet. He stretches his arms out in front of him, fingers locked together, and feels the pull of it against his back, but it doesn’t hurt like it had. It feels good to pull against the tenderness, it feels satisfying, though not as satisfying as an orgasm would be.

“I’m good,” he tells Tony, his cheeks heating just a little. “You worked the stiffness out and pushed me past the point where it’s just straight pain. It feels good again.” He still thinks he should be able to explain it better than that, but Tony’s face seems to indicate that he understands enough that Bruce doesn’t need to explain more or better. Tony’s cock is thick and hard between his thighs, and Bruce’s mouth starts to water as soon as he sees it. He bites his lip, trying to keep the swimmy headspace he’s in from spilling out of his mouth, but then it does anyway; he can’t help what he is. “Tony, can I suck you?”

“I thought you wanted to come,” Tony says, sounding mostly amused, but with a touch of cruelty twisting around the edges.

“I do, I want to come, but I want to suck you, too,” Bruce admits, face heating again, and he can feel Tony watching him.

“I’d rather save your hard on for Steve,” Tony says matter of factly. “I don’t know if we’ll actually see Steve today, honestly, but if we do, I want you to be ready to fuck him.”

Bruce would like to argue that knowing he’s going to be allowed to fuck Steve would probably be enough to get him hard again even if he does come now, but doesn’t. He keeps his mouth shut and lets his eyes dwell on the length and width of Tony’s cock.

“Come out into the bedroom,” Tony says, and circles around Bruce to get to the door, Bruce turns and follows, hesitating in the bathroom. He kind of has to piss now, but he’s hard enough that it will be next to impossible to do it. He decides to wait and catches up to Tony as he exits the bathroom and enters the bedroom, and Bruce goes to his knees, feeling the pull and stretch of the bruises across his back and ass, but they still feel fine, good even, good enough to make his cock ache a little. They move to the foot of the bed, and Tony tugs the cuffs that usually go around Bruce’s ankles over the top of the footboard to dangle, messing with them a little to spread them wider, since last night they’d been fixed fairly close together to accommodate Bruce’s sleeping arrangements. “Put your back against the footboard,” Tony says, and Bruce, a little puzzled, but willing, turns so that his back is near the footboard and his feet have actually disappeared a little under the bed. “No, I said _against_ ,” Tony says flatly, and Bruce’s belly flutters a little with heated nerves, but he backs up so that his hot, sore back is actually pressed against the wood of the footboard. He’s got a ghost of an idea of why Tony might want him like this, and he’s both thrilled and nervous about how his back is going to respond to it, but when Tony says, “Lift up your arms,” Bruce does it immediately, not quite draping them across the top of the footboard, it’s a little too tall for that, but arranging them so that Tony can fit the cuffs attached to the footboard around his wrists, if that is what he intends to do.

It is.

Tony buckles his wrists into the cuffs, pulling them tight, and Bruce presses his back up against the cool wood of the footboard experimentally, trying to see how it’s going to feel if Tony does what Bruce thinks he’s going to do. His skin is still a little slick with oil, but that doesn’t do anything to ease the pressure of his bruised back against the hard wood of the footboard. If Tony is even only a little rough, it’s going to push Bruce back into it, against it, and it’s going to hurt. Hurt good, Bruce thinks, but is by no means sure. He hadn’t been lying to Tony earlier when Tony had asked if it was the worst that Bruce had ever had. It is, the worst by far, but he still thinks it will hurt good, even if Tony is rough with him. Still, the coolness of the wood against his hot back is enough to make him shiver, and when Tony finishes cuffing his hands, Bruce just looks at Tony, waiting and shivering a little, both impatient and nearly endlessly patient, his subspace dipping down from being bound to the foot of Tony’s bed, his desire to suck Tony only amplified by the understanding that Tony wants him to hurt a little while he does it.

Tony stares down at him with dark eyes, and licks his bottom lip, leaving it wet and slick looking, making Bruce want to lick the same place that Tony’s tongue had touched. “Will you be able to take this?” Tony asks.

“I think so,” Bruce says, and flexes his arms a little to see how much give the restraints allow him. Not much, and testing the limits of the bondage pulls hard at his back, sending pain messages arching through his body to settle somewhere in the pit of his belly, which is already twisting and heated at the idea that he’s going to get to suck Tony’s cock. He’s a little relieved to feel the pain go that way, to have it divert itself directly toward his desire, and is more sure that this will be okay. He leans his head back against the footboard, which is plenty tall enough to allow him to do so without his head tipping back onto the bed. A benefit, he supposes, to Tony’s extremely tall bed. He leans his head back and waits as patiently as he can while his cock jerks between his thighs and desire tangles in the cradle between his hipbones.

“Will it hurt you?” Tony asks, his expression cool and considering as he asks it, as though the question is mostly academic.

“Yes,” Bruce answers truthfully. “Anything I do right now is going to hurt me, Tony.” It’s the absolute truth. Even if they do nothing but go out and get breakfast, Bruce is going to be hurting.

“Even if we do see Steve some time this morning, will you be able to fuck him?” Tony asks.

“I don’t know,” Bruce says truthfully, “but I’d be more than willing to try.”

Tony’s lips curve into a smirk, as though it doesn’t surprise him at all that Bruce would be willing to try to fight through the pain if he had a chance at Steve’s ass. He steps forward, close enough that his cock slides against Bruce’s cheek, and wraps his hands around the top of the footboard. “I’m not going to be gentle,” he says, not so much a warning as just conveying information.

“I understand,” Bruce says, his heart pounding at the sleek feel of Tony’s cock sliding against his cheek and at the way he can suddenly smell Tony, earthy and musky and entirely masculine. His mouth waters again, and when Tony pulls his hips back, Bruce lets his mouth drop open like it wants to, and Tony presses the head of his cock between Bruce’s lips. He eases it in on the first stroke, changing the position of his own feet once, as though wanting to be sure he’s standing how he wants to be for the rest of the blow job, and then pulls almost all the way out. Then he presses in again, this time hard and fast and deep enough that the head of his cock nudges up against the back of Bruce’s throat and makes Bruce choke a little. Bruce accepts it, all of it, his back a bright expanse of pain, his ass even brighter, and understands this isn’t going to be a blow job, not really, not like this. Tony is going to fuck his mouth, use his mouth, and he shudders at the idea of it even as it causes him to tense a little, muscles pulling at the bruises on his back.

He is able to relax again almost immediately, he _wants_ Tony to fuck his mouth, it only makes his mouth water more and his cock jerk more eagerly, and Tony doesn’t disappoint him. The first few strokes are hard and fast and deep, but not too deep, just enough to start a faint ache in Bruce’s jaw and to make it hard for him to use his tongue for anything but pressure against the bottom of Tony’s shaft, and then he is pressing in harder and deeper, and Bruce is struggling not to tense up when he feels himself losing his air, his throat full of Tony’s cock. A shudder wracks the whole length of his body, so that his back loses contact with the footboard for a moment and then slaps gently back against it, but it’s enough to send sizzling jolts of electric pain to his groin, and he would moan, except that Tony’s cock is shoved all the way back into his throat, and he’s barely moving at all, just the slow flex of his hips as he keeps his cock lodged deep in Bruce’s throat. Bruce can’t make a sound, either good or bad, and Tony’s legs are pressed against the front of his chest, pinning him harder against the footboard so that the pressure on his back is horrendous and fantastic. Tony’s whole lower body is pressed against the front of Bruce, and he isn’t fucking Bruce’s mouth, he’s fucking Bruce’s throat, pulling out just enough to drag at the tender tissue inside his throat, but never enough to pull the few inches he has buried in Bruce’s throat out, not enough for Bruce to get a breath or make a noise. 

Tears begin to stream from Bruce’s eyes, but he hardly notices them. He’s completely wrapped up in Tony’s careful thrusts, not gentle, but not really hard either, just deep, just keeping Bruce’s head pinned against the footboard so Bruce couldn’t pull back to get a breath even if he wanted to. Bruce wouldn’t have, Bruce would have let Tony take him this deep for as long as Tony wants without pulling away, but not being _able_ to pull away adds another dimension to the lust wrapped around the root of his belly like barbed wire, being completely pinned and helpless to pull away does something for Bruce, gives him something extra, and his hips rock a little in spite of everything, like they can’t help it, even as the motion slaps his ass back against the unforgiving wood of the footboard. If anything, that only makes him want to rock his hips harder, but he can’t, there isn’t enough room, and he struggles to take Tony’s cock however Tony wants to give it even as his arms begin to flex a little against the bondage as his lack of breath becomes overwhelming, pulling the bruised muscles of his back taut so that they wail with pain, but none of it is enough to stop him from loving it, feeling himself overcome by it, as his head starts to feel swimmy and unreal with lack of oxygen and his cock continues to jerk between his thighs.

“God, Bruce,” Tony groans. “I can feel you trying to struggle and trying not to struggle at the same time, it feels fucking fantastic, your throat is so fucking tight around my cock, you’re so good, Bruce,” and Bruce shudders, slapping his back against the footboard again with a blaze of pain and desperate want, and his lack of air is moving from frightening and hot to hazy and accepting, and even on his knees he can feel himself slumping a little, as much as the cuffs around his wrists will let him, as he drifts toward unconsciousness, and then Tony is pulling back with a huge exhalation, and Bruce sucks in a breath that is absolutely icy in his throat and little black and red explosions drift behind his closed eyelids; he groans desperately, needfully, and he feels Tony curl his fists into his hair as he thrusts between Bruce’s lips just a few times, maybe four or five, and then tastes Tony’s come as it spills across his tongue in bitter, salty bursts. Bruce sucks automatically as Tony comes, heedless of his own panting breath and his raw throat, intent on making Tony’s orgasm good, making it last, drawing it out, until finally Tony lets out a short, harsh gasp and pulls free of Bruce’s mouth, leaving Bruce to swallow hard past the rawness of his throat and then gasp for breath of his own, his chest heaving as his head slowly clears and he begins to be aware of the crippling ache of his own cock. More tears stream down his cheeks, these not from being choked, but from sheer want so gripping that Bruce has to bite his own tongue to keep from begging Tony to let him come. His back is taut and screaming with pain that is close enough to pleasure to make it only harder to resist begging for an orgasm, and his hips are still rocking slightly when Tony steps back, his hands still curled around the top of the footboard, breathing hard and fast as he comes down.

Some little time later, it could have been seconds or minutes, Bruce isn’t sure, is too wrapped up in his desire and his pain, Tony drops to his knees in front of Bruce and cups his jaw in one hand. Bruce stares at him with desperate, helpless eyes, and Tony kisses his cheek and his temple, and asks, “How close did you come to actually passing out, Bruce?”

Bruce has to swallow twice to moisten his throat enough to give Tony an answer, his throat is so raw and tight. “Very close,” he croaks out, and Tony’s hand slides from his jaw to the back of his neck, and Bruce lets his head fall forward and rest against Tony’s shoulder while Tony’s hands stroke his arms and chest gently, something that would normally help Bruce settle again, but now, with his want so big, just makes him want to arch forward so that his cock is pressed up against the front of Tony’s body. He doesn’t, he resists, but it is so hard, and it is so close.

“I felt it, you started to go limp against me,” Tony says. “God, it was good,” he breathes, and brushes both hands through Bruce’s hair, pushing it back away from his face. Bruce is tipped a little forward now, his back no longer pressed tight against the footboard, just his bound wrists holding his weight, just hanging as still as he can so that he doesn’t try to press his whole body against Tony’s, just touch him anywhere. Tears are still leaking down his cheeks, and he wonders if he could explain to Tony how big his want is, if he could just make Tony understand, if Tony would relent and let Bruce press against his belly or his hip and thrust against Tony’s skin until he came. It wouldn’t take much, just a little pressure, just a little motion, and Bruce wants it so badly. His gasping breaths turn into little hitching sounds instead, and Bruce struggles to keep from bursting into tears.

Tony eases back away from Bruce and his hands go to work unbuckling the cuffs holding Bruce’s wrists. Bruce almost wants to stop him, he’s not sure at all what his hands will do once they are freed, but before he can get together enough mental equilibrium to try to explain that to Tony, his hands are already free. He reaches for Tony, who reaches back, his expression still dark, but also gentle, and Bruce is sure he would’ve pressed his whole front side up against Tony given his own way, but Tony’s hands catch his hips and hold him back below the waist, so that Bruce just crumples against Tony’s chest, the arc reactor digging a little into the side of his jaw, but not hard enough for him to care enough to move away from it. He loses the battle against tears, but they are quiet, hitching tears, not the kind of desperate sobs he’d been half fearing, and he clings to Tony’s chest, pressing his face into the warm crevice at the inside curve of his shoulder. Tony keeps one hand on Bruce’s hip, but uses the other to stroke across one of Bruce’s arms and his ribs and the big muscles of his thigh.

“Easy,” Tony murmurs, holding him carefully, keeping his hands away from his back while one hand still grips Bruce’s hip. “Easy, Bruce, you’re alright.”

And, after a time, Bruce is alright. He still wants to come desperately, but he no longer feels like he might die if he doesn’t get to, with Tony’s hands gentle on his body and his voice murmuring soothing nonsense against the top of Bruce’s head. Eventually the tears pass, too, and the shuddering settles down into just occasional tremors, and when Tony’s hands raise to his shoulders to push him back so that he can look Bruce in the face, Bruce looks back, not really calm, but not out of his mind, either. Balanced between calm and deep and clenching need, but he can push the need back, pushes it back even as Tony is studying his face with his perceptive eyes. Bruce still isn’t ready when Tony drops one hand between them and curls it around Bruce’s cock. Bruce gasps and his hips jerk forward, his whole body jerks forward, and Tony’s expression is almost sympathetic as he says, “Ah, I see,” and lets go of Bruce’s cock. Bruce feels his face crumple into misery, and then Tony is stroking his hair, but not touching Bruce anywhere else anymore, just a hand in his hair. Bruce slumps forward a little, and realizes that he’s dropped down so that his ass is resting on his heels, and his ass and the backs of his thighs are screaming merry hell about it. He groans a little as he forces himself back up to his knees. His cock brushes against Tony’s hand as Tony moves it down to help Bruce up, and Bruce chokes back a helpless sound at even that little contact.

“Easy, Bruce,” Tony says again. “You’ve got a hair trigger today.” His tone is almost conversational, but the look on his face is not. That look is a little twist of amusement and cruelty, mostly around the eyes, and a knowing smile on his lips.

“I can’t help it,” Bruce manages to get out hoarsely, his throat is still very raw, still feels very tight.

“That’s alright,” Tony says. “We’ll work around it. Why don’t you settle yourself someplace you think that you’ll be comfortable, and I’ll go get you something to drink.”

Bruce nods, head still hanging down, and Tony grips his forearms and half drags Bruce to his feet. “However you’ll be most comfortable,” Tony says, and kisses Bruce’s lips softly, and then turns to leave the bedroom.

Bruce settles himself the only way he really can, which is lying on his side on the bed with a pillow dragged up under his chest to brace himself against. He worries the whole time about getting oil on Tony’s sheets, but he isn’t sure what else to do. There will be no position more comfortable for him today. He could accept it better if it weren’t for the grinding need pooled in his belly and twisting around the base of his spine.

Tony returns not with a drink, but with a _drink_ , another whiskey sour by the look of it, and Bruce blinks a little uncertainly at it. He’s never in his life had a drink before breakfast. Still, he goes up to one elbow and accepts it when Tony offers it to him. “You seem like you need it,” Tony says, and settles on the bed beside him, also stretched out on his side.

Bruce takes a swallow, and it simultaneously cools and soothes his raw throat, and seems to warm it enough that some of the tightness in it recedes. He takes another drink, and this one drops into his stomach and warms it. Bruce doesn’t drink that often, but when he does, he does it to relax, and it seems like his body tastes the alcohol and understands that the appropriate response is to relax, because he can feel himself starting to do it. Apparently Tony was right. Bruce had needed it. Tony watches him drink it, looking at him appraisingly, until Bruce actually finishes the drink. Then Tony takes the glass from him and sets it on the bedside table.

“Steve and Clint are making breakfast,” Tony tells him. “Steve doesn’t have a mark on him. If I hadn’t seen him being caned yesterday with my own eyes, I wouldn’t have believed he’d taken any kind of beating yesterday.” Tony shakes his head. “Even if he’d been able to take the same level of punishment you can take, we wouldn’t have been able to track his level of healing as compared to yours. His is too fast. Unless we’d kept you both on camera the whole time, we just wouldn’t have seen it.”

“I told you I didn’t get anything like what Steve got from the serum,” Bruce says, though in all honesty, he is a little surprised that Steve is completely unmarked. He would have guessed he’d still show at least faint lines of bruising, if nothing else. “Are we going out to have breakfast?”

Tony looks at him. “Do you want to go out to have breakfast?” he asks. “I won’t want you to put anything on. Not to show you off, but just because clothes are going to be, at the very least, extremely uncomfortable for you right now.”

“I know,” Bruce says. “I have yoga clothes that might not be too bad, but anything at all is going to cause at least a little pain. I’m not… I’m not worried about what they see. Well, only a little, and that has more to do with doing routine things while naked than it does just being naked in front of them,” he admits.

“How long do you think it will take you to heal this?” Tony asks him. 

Bruce shakes his head. “I don’t have enough experience with post serum healing of the aftereffects of kinky sex to really say, Tony. Before the serum, I would have guessed about four days. With it, maybe just one to get over the worst of it and another one to get it down to where I can sit down comfortably. Maybe another after that before all the marks are gone. But it’s mostly speculation.”

Tony nods, his face lost in thought. “We’ll still try to measure how quickly you get past the worst effects of it. It will give us a measuring stick about anything else we want to do, at the very least.” He looks back at Bruce and cocks his head. “Are you hungry, Bruce?”

“I have to get soft enough to take a piss, and I’d like to at least shower before I leave the bedroom,” Bruce says.

“No, I want your back to soak up more of the oil before you shower,” Tony says. “You can do that later, and even then I might want to oil you again right after.”

“Okay, Tony,” Bruce agrees. “I’ll go see if I can manage to piss with this thing, then.”

“There’s no hurry, Bruce. You can wait for your hard on to go down on its own a little,” Tony says.

Bruce laughs a little, without a whole lot of humor. “It’s not going to go down unless I either get an orgasm, or another serious dose of pain, and I’m not entirely sure about the pain. This is as good as it’s going to get until I can do something with it.” He scoots carefully off the side of the bed and goes down to his knees. He hears more than sees Tony moving across the expanse of the bed to watch him crawl to the bathroom, and every motion is enough to send pain washing down from his back and ass directly to his groin. By the time he gets to the bathroom, he’s close to tears again with his need, but he manages to get to his feet with the help of the door frame, and goes to lean over the toilet and try to will himself at least a little softer. He really does have to pee now, and he thinks that’s the only thing that finally lets him get soft enough to do it without spraying it right up into his own face. That, and the fact that he leans against the wall on one side and stays as still as he can for as long as it takes. Even then, just moving from toilet to sink to wash his hands is enough to harden him back up until he could use his cock for a battering ram if he wanted to. If it were only that, if it were only the erection, Bruce wouldn’t have worried so much about it. But it’s not only that. He’s still quietly, hopelessly desperate in that way that makes every part of his body into an erogenous zone, still needs to come so badly that he’ll have to be careful not to rub or brush up against anything. He’s still so hard that he aches with it. He’s still needful. He’s managed to take a half step back from it right at the moment, but it would take him next to nothing to lose that half step, and maybe end up in desperate tears again in front of everyone at breakfast.

Even so, he finally decides. It’s not his decision. Even if it happens, it’s not his job to do anything about it. He can leave it in Tony’s hands, is supposed to leave it in Tony’s hands. It’s just been a long time since he’s been this wound up and also has had someone who is supposed to deal with the repercussions of it for him. He dries his hands on a gray hand towel and wanders back out into the bedroom.

“Just stay on your feet,” Tony tells him when he comes out of the bathroom. “We’re going directly to the kitchen, so there’s no point in having you go down and then get back up again.” Tony is already dressed in jeans and a t-shirt that look a little too pressed and neat not to have come from one of Tony’s many closets.

Bruce swallows hard and nods, walking in the direction of the bedroom door. Tony beats him to it, but waits for him, his coffee colored eyes watchful, and he doesn’t look surprised when Bruce hesitates a few feet away. “Tell me,” is all he says.

“I’m kind of in submissive overdrive right now,” Bruce finally manages to say, because he can’t think of a better way to say it. “I barely have any control over what my body does or does not respond to. I’m on the edge. I just want you to know so you can decide what you want me to do out there. I can’t take people touching me unless you want to see me… break down into my most basic needs right now. I don’t want you to take me out there without understanding. It’s your right, if you want to do it, or if you want to let someone else do it, but I won’t be able to fight my responses very much right now, Tony. I’m already too close to the edge.”

“I guessed it was something like that,” Tony says. “Try not to worry.”

And that’s all. He doesn’t say that he won’t let anyone touch Bruce, or that he won’t touch Bruce himself in front of all of them. He doesn’t say he _won’t_ drag Bruce the half step forward which is all it would take to leave Bruce in helpless, desperate tears with his desire to come. He doesn’t promise anything. Just: Try not to worry.

Bruce nods slowly, and closes the distance between himself and Tony and the door. Tony opens it, and gestures at Bruce to precede him through it. Bruce does, though as soon as the door is open he can hear Clint and Steve talking, and the homey sounds of something frying and other things being banged around.

He walks out into the penthouse naked, and tries not to worry.

Clint is wearing sweats and nothing else, which is pretty standard breakfast attire for Clint. Steve is wearing jeans, but no shirt, which is a little more unusual. Clint is frying bacon, while Steve bends over to take something out of the oven with a pot holder to protect his hand. Bruce wonders where the oven mitt has gotten off to, but doesn’t call attention to himself by asking. He walks over to the kitchen bar, which already has a chair tugged out from the other eight or so that surround it, from where Bruce had dragged it out yesterday when he’d been wearing the chastity harness. He stands in the space where the chair is not, and the bar comes up just high enough to hide his erection, though he’ll have to be careful not to bump it up against the bottom of the bar when he moves.

Tony follows him out and hovers at his elbow for a long moment, before he asks, “Do you want tea, Bruce?”

“Yes, thank you,” Bruce says, aware that Clint and Steve have stopped what they were doing to turn and look at Bruce and Tony. Steve looks calm and happy, so whatever he and Phil had done after leaving the penthouse yesterday must have worked well for him. Clint’s brows are slightly arched, as though in question, though his gaze is flicking back and forth between Bruce and Tony, so it’s not clear who he’s questioning, or about what.

“Is there a free burner for the kettle?” Tony asks, and Steve steps out of his way to one side, revealing that he’s holding a tin of muffins still hot from the oven. He transfers the muffin tin to a trivet and steps further out of the way to make room for Tony as he slides the kettle onto the stovetop and flips one of the burners on. Bruce sees that Steve isn’t only wearing jeans after all. He’s also wearing an apron, which covers his front, but leaves his back bare. The apron says: “This shit is going to be delicious.” It is so not Steve that Bruce can’t help the smile that it summons to his face. Steve, apparently paying attention to Bruce’s face, smiles back, looking a little uncertain still, but also a little relieved.

“Hey,” Steve says. “How’s your back?”

“It hurts,” Bruce says, but without much concern. “Yours looks pretty much as good as new.”

“Yeah,” Steve says, and raises an arm to rub at the back of his neck, looking obscurely guilty. “Sorry about that.”

Bruce blinks. “I’m not,” he says honestly, and Steve’s smile broadens into something a little less uncertain. “I like the day after pain,” Bruce says, and the uncertainty entirely evaporates from Steve’s face.

“Okay,” he says, blushing a little. “Good.”

Clint circles around the kitchen island and around the bar so that he’s standing behind Bruce. He says, “Holy shit, Bruce!” actually sounding a little alarmed. He takes a couple of steps forward, and Tony says,

“Keep your hands to yourself, Barton,” in a flat, end-of-discussion tone. He crosses over to one of the cupboards and pours himself a cup of coffee while Clint stands behind Bruce and stares. Bruce tries not to let it tense him up, but he can’t help it.

“Holy shit,” Clint repeats, except low and reverent this time, and Bruce shudders a little, can’t stop it, and even though Clint is still at least three feet away, his attention makes him feel closer. Bruce tenses, and feels the bruised muscle flex under the abraded skin of the back of his body. It makes his cock jerk and sway heavily between his thighs, but he doesn’t turn around and look at Clint. He doesn’t want to see anything on Clint’s face that might make him abandon the frayed bits of his self-control that Bruce is still clinging to. 

Tony comes over to the table and takes the chair next to where Bruce is standing. Tony shoots a warning look at Clint, and Clint turns away, circling the island to get back to the stove. “This is all of us for breakfast this morning,” Clint says after a long, long several moments of silence. “Nat has something to do at SHIELD and Thor escorted Jane back to New Mexico. He won’t be back until later in the day. We have bacon, eggs, and blueberry muffins. Does anybody want anything else?”

“No, that all sounds fine,” Tony says, glancing once at Bruce, but not asking for his opinion. “Where is Coulson?”

“He has to work part of the day,” Steve volunteers. “He should be home early in the afternoon.” Then he blushes intensely, and turns back to his muffins, pulling off a strip of paper towels and laying it out on the counter, and then using the pot holder and a kitchen towel to hold the tin while he turns it over and shakes it gently, so that the muffins spill out onto the paper towels. He sets aside the tin and begins to stack muffins onto a serving plate in a careful pyramid, which he brings over to the table. Then he gets plates for the four of them, and Clint comes over with the skillet of bacon and serves up five pieces to everyone, and comes back with the skillet of eggs, and serves up a steaming serving of eggs to everyone as well. “Oh, butter,” Steve says, and adroitly dodges around Clint to get to the refrigerator to get out the butter. Bruce can pretty much pinpoint the moment that Steve gets a look at Bruce’s back. His footsteps stop abruptly, and he huffs out a surprised sounding breath.

“I’m fine,” Bruce says. “Don’t touch it, I’m not fine enough for that, but I’m okay, Steve.”

Steve’s footsteps start up again slowly and then he sits down at the bar, holding the butter dish and looking a little dazed. “You like that?” he asks Bruce, still looking like he doesn’t really know what he’s saying. “You’re black and blue!”

“It was a little rough waking up this morning with it,” Bruce says. “I got stiff overnight. But Tony worked most of the stiffness out with a massage. It hurts, but not in a bad way.”

Steve’s cheeks heat at that for no reason that Bruce can tell, and he puts a muffin on Bruce’s plate. Then he pauses, and gives Bruce a second muffin, his cheeks still bright red.

“Why are _you_ blushing?” Tony asks, sounding amused as he bites into a strip of bacon.

“Oh, I.” Steve pauses and then shrugs, but his cheeks are still pink. “I just have a better idea of what it means that it hurts, but not in a bad way than I did before,” he says, managing dignity even with the blush.

“Good for you,” Tony says, smirking and still sounding amused. The kettle starts to whistle, and he lays a hand on Bruce’s arm to stop him from going to make his own tea. “I’ll get it,” he says. “Eat your breakfast.”

Bruce blinks a little, unsure if Tony even knows how to use a tea ball, and then decides not to worry about it, and butters his muffins. They are still piping hot, and the butter melts easily into them, leaving them fluffy and delicious and dripping with butter. Bruce eats both of the muffins first, before going to work on his bacon and eggs. Tony brings a mug with tea ball in it and a shallow dish and puts them next to Bruce’s plate.

“Thank you,” Bruce says, still a little surprised that Tony knows how to use a tea ball and even knows that he’s going to need somewhere to put it once he takes it out of the cup.

“No problem,” Tony says, running his fingertips along the back of Bruce’s neck lightly, which makes Bruce shiver a little even though Tony had totally avoided any part of Bruce that hurt.

Bruce eats, and the eggs are over easy rather than scrambled, which is mostly how you can tell someone other than Tony made them. The bacon is crisp and good, and Bruce had been hungrier than he’d thought, which makes sense when he thinks about it, as they’d had a very light lunch, and hadn’t eaten dinner at all. 

The rest of the team had, and Tony and Bruce had been invited, but they’d taken a pass in order to let Tony explore the welts across Bruce’s back and ass with his tongue in a leisurely fashion. Then Tony had fingered him gently until Bruce had been twisting needily back against his hand, and had jerked him off with his fingers still working in Bruce’s ass. Bruce would have let Tony fuck him if he’d wanted to, but Tony hadn’t asked, and Bruce had been far too wrapped up in his subspace to think to ask for anything that Tony didn’t offer.

Bruce wonders if Tony would fuck him now, and has to concentrate on getting his tea ball out of his cup and getting it onto the dish without looking around him because the desire to ask is almost overwhelming. He sips at his tea, which is warm and soothing and good, and catches Steve watching him over the rim of his cup and arches his brows in question.

Steve shakes his head and then looks away, cheeks going pink again, and Bruce wonders what he’s thinking about that is making him look like that. He has to make himself stop thinking about it when it starts to make his cock throb even more insistently between his thighs.

Bruce automatically starts to clear the bar when everyone is mostly done with their plates, and doesn’t think at all about his back until he reaches across the bar to accept Steve’s plate and it pulls at everything from the neck down, and Bruce drops the plate in his hand onto the top of the bar and just braces his hands on the edge of the bar and breathes hard for a long minute or so.

“Maybe let Clint and Steve handle the cleanup this morning,” Tony says gently, and Bruce would like to argue since Steve and Clint cooked, but he really can’t argue considering the way he’s gripping the edge of the bar just to keep himself from reaching between his own legs and jerking his cock until he finally, finally comes. 

Clint and Steve don’t object at all, just pick up the plates and serving dishes and take them to the sink. Bruce hears them starting to rinse things and load the dishwasher, but can’t quite bring himself to open his eyes, can’t quite get ahold of himself, even though he can feel Tony watching him.

“Drink some more of your tea,” Tony orders in a low but commanding voice, and Bruce forces his eyes open and sees that Tony is holding the cup out to him. He takes it in both hands and sips at it, trying to calm down, really trying, but not having a lot of success. He’s so desperate to come that his balls ache, and as soothing as tea normally is for him, it’s just not going to soothe this away.

“Tony, I need to come, or I need you to put something on me so I can’t come,” he finally murmurs, feeling his cheeks flush hot, but unable to help it. “I can’t control myself right now, I need you to do it for me.”

“Could you fuck Steve right now?” Tony asks, and Bruce shudders so hard that tea slops out of his cup and over his thumb, but it’s not hot enough to distract him from the ache in the rest of his body.

“I could,” Bruce finally says, “but it wouldn’t be very fair to Steve. I won’t last, I have been an inch away since the massage, and with as much as I hurt, I can’t seem to pull back from it. I’m trying, I’m sorry, but I’ve never tried to deal with this much pain on top of this much want before. They feed off each other, Tony. I can’t get either of them to diminish and move into the background.”

“Shh, it’s okay,” Tony says, turning to face Bruce in his chair, his expression measuring and sympathetic at the same time. “Why didn’t you tell me before?”

“I tried, before we came out here, I tried. I just thought the neediness would draw back,” Bruce says, trying to keep himself from giving into tears in the middle of the kitchen. “I thought once I wasn’t doing anything sexual, it would ease back. It always has before.”

The water is running in the sink and they’re talking in low voices, but Bruce is betting Steve, at least, with his super serum enhanced senses, can hear everything they are saying. It makes his face burn dully, but he can’t muster up any real embarrassment. He’s too frayed, his control is too brittle; all that matters now is giving the matter over to Tony and letting him decide how to handle it, because Bruce obviously can’t handle it himself.

“And this started after the massage, when you sucked me off?” Tony asks. “Or before that, sometime during the massage.”

“Sometime during the massage, but it only got this bad after I sucked you off,” Bruce admits. “I thought sucking you off would help, would give me something else to focus on, and it did, while it was happening, but afterward it all came back, not all at once, but by inches, the way frost climbs up a window. I thought… I thought I would be okay until it was clear that I wasn’t.” A tear escapes Bruce’s right eye and runs down his cheek. He closes both eyes at the feel of it and wrestles any more tears that might want to escape back as far as he can. When he opens his eyes again, Tony is watching him, his face almost impassive. “I’m sorry,” Bruce whispers, and he is, but he can’t help it, and how was he supposed to know that it would happen like this?

Bruce has never been so fundamentally out of control of himself outside of a scene, has never been caught like this, in freefall, without a dominant already there and directing him. And even then, it has never been this strong. He has never hurt this much and needed this much at the same time, and he’d had no idea of the way that the two would build on each other, each making the other harder to endure.

“I’m sorry,” Bruce says again, and Tony glances over at Clint and Steve, who are studiously paying attention to loading the dishwasher and nothing else, his brow faintly furrowed, as though in thought.

“Don’t be sorry,” Tony says, but he’s still looking at Clint and Steve when he says it. His face smoothes out, the furrow across his brow melting away, and he turns back to look at Bruce. “You already told me this is the worst you’ve ever taken. We both should have known there would be blowback from that.” His gaze flicks to Clint and Steve again. “I’ll take you into the bedroom and take care of you, but I need you to tell me if we’ll be taking anyone in with us.”

“I can’t…” Bruce says, and Tony catches his jaw in one hand and holds him still, meeting and holding his eyes fiercely. “I need you to decide,” Bruce whispers. “I will do anything right now. I will do everything. But I can’t pick and choose. I need you to do that.”

“You’re _sure_ that’s what you want?” Tony demands. “You’re sure, Bruce, because if you’re not, later will be too late to say that I didn’t give you a choice.”

“I’m sure,” Bruce says, and he is sure, even though he is almost certain he knows what Tony is thinking of doing. He’s scared of it, but he needs so much that it negates the fear, cancels it out, makes it unimportant. It wouldn’t matter if the whole team were here, right now in this moment. Bruce needs hands and skin and mouths and cocks and it doesn’t matter who they belong to. He is probably lucky there are so few Avengers in the tower this morning.

Tony stands up and grips Bruce’s elbow, dragging Bruce with him as he approaches the sink. 

Steve, as though already anticipating what is about to happen, reaches in front of Clint and turns off the water. Clint frowns a little at Steve. He has a plate in one hand that still has bits of egg clinging to it.

“Clint,” Tony says, and Clint jerks a little, startled at having Tony and Bruce suddenly right there. He looks at them both, eyes flickering from one face to the other, and then he puts the plate he’s holding down in the sink.

“What do you need?” Clint asks, and Bruce can tell that he means it just as broadly as his words seem to imply, that he will do anything they need, be anything they need him to be.

“Can you deep throat Bruce?” Tony asks, and Bruce feels his own eyes go wide even as Clint’s eyes drop down to measure Bruce’s cock with his gaze.

“I’m pretty sure,” Clint says, and lifts his gaze back up to Tony’s face, this time more or less ignoring Bruce. “Is that what you need?”

“That’s what I need to start with,” Tony says. “Come to bed with us?”

Clint grins and takes a towel that Steve hands him to dry off his hands. “Say when.”

Tony looks at Steve. “Come to bed with us?” he asks.

Steve looks startled to be asked, and glances from Tony to Bruce and then to Clint, as though he can’t quite determine what he would do if he were in bed with three other men at the same time, but he says, “Bruce?” and it’s a question, but not one that Steve expects to be told no to. More like he just needs Bruce to confirm it for him.

“Whatever Tony says,” Bruce says, his voice unsteady. He isn’t entirely sure what they’ll do with four men in bed at the same time either, but he trusts Tony. “I want what Tony wants.” It’s more that he wants what Tony tells him to want, but he’s not sure Steve will understand that motivation, and he is too needy to try and explain it to him right now.

Steve looks at Tony. “I won’t know what to do,” Steve says frankly, but barely blushes at all at the admission. “You’ll have to tell me what to do.”

“I’ll tell you,” Tony promises, and Steve glances at Clint for a moment, and then just nods. Clint passes the hand towel to Steve, and Steve dries his own hands, a line still drawn between his dark, elegant brows, but not enough concern there to stop him, to stop _them_. Steve is going to go along with it because Bruce had agreed, and maybe a little because he’s happy just to be included. Bruce looks at Clint, who is bouncing a little on the balls of his feet; Clint is going to do it just because he wants to do it, wants to do whatever Tony needs him to do, wants to touch Bruce in any way that he’s allowed to do it, has wanted to from the very beginning, and hasn’t gone to any pains to hide it.

“Come on,” Tony says, and takes Bruce’s hand and pulls him toward the bedroom. Bruce’s feet follow, his head buzzing with need so that he’s barely thinking at all, his cock swaying heavily back and forth between his thighs. Bruce thinks of Clint behind him, Clint saying he can probably deep throat Bruce’s cock, and thinks a little hysterically that it will probably hardly matter if he can or not. He is primed and ready as it stands. Clint won’t _need_ to deep throat him, will just need to close his lips around Bruce’s cock, and that will be all it takes. He wishes it weren’t so, he hasn’t been deep throated in years and would like to be able to take his time and enjoy it, but it just isn’t going to happen. Still, he follows Tony quietly, and senses Clint and Steve following him, and doesn’t object because he’d put it into Tony’s hands, and Tony will do whatever Tony is going to do.

“Stay on your feet,” Tony says, though whether he’s talking to Bruce or Steve or both is unclear. “Just go to the bed, all three of you. Take turns kissing Bruce until I get a few things together.”

Clint slips past Bruce and bounds up onto the bed, but then turns and helps Bruce balance as he climbs onto the bed himself. Steve slips up onto the bed without help or fanfare, but he closes the distance between himself and Bruce first, sliding his lips along Bruce’s gently until Bruce’s lips part, and then kissing him with easy familiarity, not trying to push Bruce with his lips and tongue, though Bruce is pushed a little anyway, can’t help how close he already is to the edge, but Steve is just Steve, gentle and careful and still wholly absorbing. Kissing Steve makes Bruce’s eyes flutter closed and his body slump forward to lean against his broad chest. He only becomes aware that Steve is still wearing the apron when Clint captures Bruce’s wrists gently and pushes him back away from Steve so that Clint can pull the loop of the apron out from around his neck and then fling it over the side of the bed. 

Steve’s chest, naked and gorgeous, is abruptly filling Bruce’s line of vision, and he raises his hands to stroke across it, but Clint nudges Steve gently to one side. It doesn’t stop Bruce’s motion though, because Clint’s chest is just as broad and good to look at, and Bruce wants to touch it. Clint inhales deeply when Bruce strokes his hands from Clint’s shoulders to his waist, and then he leans forward against Bruce’s hands and captures Bruce by the back of his neck and kisses him, not like Steve had kissed him, but like Clint wants to memorize the shape of Bruce’s mouth and the feel of his lips and tongue, and Clint isn’t battering him with kisses, but is carefully drawing them out of Bruce, like a magician with multi-colored scarves hidden up his sleeve, pulling out one kiss and letting it drag forth another and then another, until Bruce is making out with Clint in a way that he doesn’t think he’s made out with anyone except Tony yet, bodies not touching except for Bruce’s hands on Clint’s chest, but mouths fused together hotly in a way that makes Bruce’s head swim madly, makes him want to break away and shove his cock up against the front of Clint’s body, and he might have, except that Clint tears his lips away from Bruce’s in a way that makes Bruce cry out a little in disappointed objection.

“Tony has something for you,” Clint murmurs, and Bruce’s eyes flutter open and he looks at Clint’s green eyes from up close, and he can see the struggle in Clint’s eyes, can see him trying to determine whether or not he’s subbing for Tony or helping Tony top Steve and Bruce, but it isn’t a hard struggle for Clint, because he doesn’t care which it is, he is just as happy to do either, he’s just waiting to be told which to do. Bruce isn’t sure how long he would have stared into Clint’s eyes, a little mesmerized by the odd duality there, but Tony cups one cheek of his ass and squeezes gently, and Bruce’s body jolts with sudden pain and attention, turning toward Tony automatically, though he doesn’t actually pull away from Tony’s hand on his ass. It hurts, but it is so good, too, is part of what he needs so badly. Tony smiles at him, and while Bruce is still looking into his face and basking in that smile, Tony’s hands quickly and mercilessly slide a cockring around his cock and balls, snapping it tightly shut. Bruce feels his eyes prickle with tears of betrayal, and fights them back.

“Tony,” Bruce whispers, as close as he can come to an objection.

“You don’t want to come as soon as Clint starts to go down on you, do you?” Tony asks, sounding calm and reasonable and saying something that had actually already crossed Bruce’s mind only a few minutes ago. Bruce shakes his head, and Tony wraps a hand around Bruce’s cock and gives him one long stroke, which makes Bruce moan with helpless need. “Go sit up against the headboard,” Tony says. He lifts one hand, and Bruce sees he has a riding crop in it. His eyes must widen with the fear that suddenly jolts through him, but Tony immediately says, “It’s not for you, I won’t be hitting you today, Bruce,” and Bruce is so relieved that a pair of tears escape his eyes. Tony wipes each of them away and leans in to kiss Bruce gently. “Your back against the headboard,” Tony repeats, and Bruce nods and drags his knees along the soft sheets until he’s all the way up to the headboard, and turns so that his back is to it. He eases back, because he is sure that Tony wants his back actually touching the headboard, not just close to it, until he feels the cool wood against his hot skin, and then arranges his knees so that he can maintain the position even if he’s getting his cock sucked.

Clint is watching Tony with shrewd eyes as Tony twirls the riding crop dexterously between his fingers. “How about it, Clint?” Tony asks, and actually seems to be asking, not ordering. “I’ll give you something closer to what I give Bruce, if you still think you want it.”

“I do,” Clint says, and then glances over at Steve. “What are you planning on doing with Steve, if you’re going to crop me while I suck Bruce?”

“For the moment, I’m just going to let him watch,” Tony says. “Once we see how Bruce does with the cockring, I might do something more.”

“Do you want him to come, or do you want him not to come?” Clint asks.

“Oh, I want him to come,” Tony says. “I just don’t want him to do it until he’s had as much of his cock down your throat as he can stand.”

Clint smirks a little. “I’ll knock on the wall if I need to safeword,” he says, and Tony nods easily, but not like he expects Clint to actually do it. Clint doesn’t sound like he thinks he’ll actually do it, either. The two of them are just going through the motions of the ritual, both of them making sure Clint’s limits are known, but like they’ve done it often enough not to be worried about actually reaching those limits. Clint slides onto his back on the bed for a second to shuck his sweatpants, and then is back up on his knees again only a moment later.

“Bruce, are you tracking me?” Tony asks, and Bruce jerks his gaze to Tony and away from Clint’s mouth immediately. He’s too far gone to blush, so he merely nods. “Bruce, you can take the cock ring off any time you want to, do you understand? It’s completely up to you. I’m not trying to hold you back. I’m just trying to give you time to enjoy it before it’s all over.”

Bruce flashes a glance down at Clint, who smiles easily at him and nods, and then looks back to Tony. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to,” he says, genuinely unsure if he’ll be capable of thinking clearly enough to decide when he wants to _stop_ being sucked by Clint.

“If you can’t after you’ve come dry a couple of times, I’ll have Clint do it,” Tony tells him, his voice all warm reassurance. “But you don’t have to wait for that if you can do it sooner, if you want to do it sooner. You can take it off whenever you’re ready.”

“Okay, Tony,” Bruce says, his voice trembling.

“Okay, Clint, show him what you can do,” Tony says, and even as he says it Clint is moving, and even as Clint is bending down to take Bruce’s cock in his mouth, Tony is drawing back and striking both cheeks of Clint’s ass with the riding crop. Clint lets out a hoarse little cry, and for a moment, buries his face in Bruce’s hip. Bruce drops a hand down into Clint’s hair, stroking it gently because he understands, and then Tony is drawing back again, but so is Clint. When Tony strikes Clint his time, Clint merely hisses out a sound that could be either pleasure or pain, but doesn’t stop dipping down to take the head of Bruce’s cock in his mouth. 

Bruce groans, and his body arches against the headboard, pressing hard against the skin of his upper back, and Clint doesn’t draw back or hesitate, just lets Bruce shove his cock deeper into the warm, velvet wetness of Clint’s mouth. Tony strikes him again, and Clint groans around Bruce’s cock, which makes Bruce’s eyes want to roll up into the back of his head even as Clint keeps working his way down Bruce’s cock, leaning forward now, so that he is able to make his back relax out of that helpless arch, and one of Clint’s hands rises to grasp at Bruce’s hip while the other stays down on the mattress, balancing him as Tony strikes his ass again. Bruce’s cock is a dense, grinding ache and Clint’s mouth is hot and so soft, easing Bruce back a little more with pleasure. Clint’s mouth goes tight and sucking around Bruce’s shaft when Tony hits him again, and Bruce cries out in shock and need, his hips trying to jerk forward, but are stopped by Clint’s hand, and it’s okay that Clint’s hand had stopped him, Clint’s tongue is twisting around the head of Bruce’s cock and exploring the big vein running along the bottom of the shaft, and then Tony hits him again, and Clint groans around Bruce’s cock and sinks further down, closer to the cockring, but not close enough that Bruce is actually fucking his throat yet. It still feels amazing, Bruce’s body is jerking and twisting a little against the grip of Clint’s single hand holding him in place, but Clint is strong, so Bruce can let it happen without worrying about it going too far. 

Clint is in control of how far and how deep Bruce goes, and that is good, that is what Bruce wants, even as Tony is striking Clint quickly now, in an almost non-stop flurry of blows. Clint is groaning continuously around Bruce’s cock, the vibrations driving Bruce insane, but Clint’s slow pace doesn’t quicken. His lips inch their way up Bruce’s cock and he sucks hard, mouth wet and tight, tongue pressing and curling, and then Clint pauses for a long moment, the groans Tony is drawing out of him coming in short, harsh grunts, but Clint still manages to take a long, deep breath, and then he plunges the rest of the way down Bruce’s cock, takes the last five or six inches all at once, until his nose is pressed against Bruce’s belly and Bruce can feel his throat, tight and working around Bruce’s cock. Bruce cries out, bending slightly forward over Clint’s back, the dry orgasm rocking through him immediately and all at once. He can feel his cock jerking in Clint’s throat, can feel Clint’s throat tightening and then easing around his cock, and Bruce is aware of nothing else for several long seconds, until it passes finally, and he feels Tony strike Clint, doesn’t hear it, Clint is too far down Bruce’s cock for any sound to escape, but feels it as Clint rocks forward slightly and his throat tightens around Bruce’s cock as though he’d like to cry out and cannot.

“Jesusfuckingchrist,” falls out of Bruce’s mouth, all as one word, and Tony pauses briefly, his arm upraised, and gives Bruce a bright, pleased smile. 

“Good isn’t it?” Tony asks even as Clint pulls back just slightly, not enough to pull Bruce’s cock out of his throat, but just enough to slide back onto Bruce’s cock again, the constriction of his throat around Bruce’s cock absolutely mind-bendingly hot, almost more than Bruce can stand. He’s tempted to fumble the ring off, but he is divided, he doesn’t want it to end, he’s totally enraptured at the feel of Clint’s throat working around Bruce’s cock.

“So good, god,” Bruce moans, and Tony smiles at him, and then brings his arm down, slapping the crop against both cheeks of Clint’s ass again. Clint goes tense around and against Bruce, his throat tightening and the hand on his hip digging into his skin a little. Tony strikes him twice more, each blow causing Clint’s throat to work around Bruce’s cock in a delirium inducing rush, and then Clint pulls back enough to inhale deeply, to catch a breath, and Tony brings the crop down across the middle of Clint’s back this time, and Clint screams a little around Bruce’s cock. “Fuck, Clint,” Bruce pants, and then he has his hands in Clint’s hair without meaning to and is easing him back down the length of Bruce’s cock, not pulling, not exactly, but guiding, and Clint is letting him guide him all the way in, until there is no more of Bruce to take and the last few inches of his cock are buried in the tightly writhing heat of Clint’s throat again. He rocks his hips tentatively, and looks down at Clint’s mouth stretched around his cock, and Clint lets him rock shallowly in and out of his throat, his lashes trembling across the tops of his cheeks like butterfly wings. He doesn’t even realize that Tony has stopped striking Clint until he hears Tony say, “Come on, Steve, Clint can take it,” and Clint goes still and trembling against Bruce, his hand going tight on Bruce’s hip again to hold him still, and Bruce looks up to see Tony setting aside a tube of lube while Steve has moved to kneel between Clint’s thighs, already working the fingers of one hand into Clint if the bunch and flex of Steve’s biceps are anything to judge by. 

Clint pulls back and Bruce lets him go, but he doesn’t pull entirely off of Bruce, just back far enough that he can breath heavily through his nose and make low, whining sounds deep in his throat that vibrate up the length of Bruce’s cock and make him shudder. Steve either doesn’t work Clint open for very long or had been doing it before Bruce had noticed that he was doing it, because after only a minute or so, Tony reaches out to take Steve’s hand away and drizzle lube into his palm, and Bruce can’t see Steve lubing up his cock, but can imagine what it must look like, and shudders again. Then Steve is pressing forward, and Clint is making small sounds, sounds that seem as desperate and eager as Bruce feels, until Steve arches forward, his thighs slapping against the back of Clint’s thighs with a flat smack of sound that makes Bruce have to close his eyes, and then they fly open again as Clint starts to work Bruce’s cock in his mouth as soon as Steve starts to fuck him, not deep, like before, but with lots of wet suction and the swirl of his tongue around the head, and Clint is pressed forward a little onto Bruce’s cock each time Steve sinks his cock into him, and Clint makes eager, helpless sounds every time it happens. 

It isn’t as good as being sheathed in Clint’s throat, not quite, but it’s good in other ways, in seeing the look on Steve’s face and in hearing the fast, panting of Clint’s breath, and feeling it even, against the skin of his belly, and in the way that Clint whines a little around Bruce’s cock, which makes Bruce shudder all over and have to resist the urge to plunge his hands into Clint’s hair again and guide his mouth further down his shaft. The dry orgasm had helped, not much, but a little, had taken just a little bit of the edge off of Bruce’s need, so that he thinks he can take this for a while, thinks he can ride the edge of the pain and pleasure, but that is before Tony starts on Clint’s back in earnest with the riding crop. Bruce hadn’t been expecting it, wouldn’t have thought there was room for Tony to get a good blow in with the way that Clint’s body is rocking forward rhythmically with Steve’s thrusts, but he should have known better. Tony has already proven he has excellent control of where his blows land. 

Steve seems almost as startled when the crop slaps down in the middle of Clint’s back, stops moving, just freezes, and then Clint shouts, the sound a little strangled around Bruce’s cock, but he must have tightened up, too, because Steve’s eyes slam closed and his head falls back and he drives forward into Clint again like he can’t help it. Tony strikes Clint again, hard. Bruce can tell it’s hard by the sudden bright welt that rises in the middle of Clint’s back, but he would have known anyway at the way Clint goes rigid, his mouth still around Bruce’s cock, and his breath hitches, as though he can’t quite drag in a breath around the pain. Steve doesn’t stop, though, he slams his hips forward and rocks Clint’s whole body forward, his mouth slipping up Bruce’s cock almost far enough to slide the head of Bruce’s cock into his throat. Clint makes a short, choking noise that Bruce thinks he should feel guilty about, but the sound actually makes his balls clench and his hands slide back into Clint’s hair, though he doesn’t pull, doesn’t try to get more of himself into Clint’s mouth and throat, and Clint’s hand on Bruce’s hip is tight like a vice now, like he’s holding all of himself still with that hand.

“All the way, Clint,” Tony says, almost gently. “You can take it, just don’t fight it.” He brings the crop down across Clint’s back again and Clint lets out a harsh, cry that nevertheless comes across as sounding helpless. Steve has gone still and Bruce’s hands are still fisted in Clint’s hair but he doesn’t try to move him, and Tony brings the crop down again, a harsh crack that makes Clint groan and shudder. Steve groans, too, and Bruce can see the muscles in his chest and arms flexing as he struggles to be still. “Come on, Clint,” Tony urges, voice still disarmingly gentle as he rains blows down across Clint’s back that Bruce can see raising white welts across Clint’s skin. Clint shudders, makes another soft and helpless sounding noise, and then presses his mouth forward on Bruce’s cock again, taking it all again, going all the way down. Bruce can see tears glistening on Clint’s cheeks, and he feels for Clint, he does, but it feels so good, his throat around Bruce’s cock feels so fucking good, especially with the way his throat constricts every time Tony hits him, and then every time Steve thrusts into him, and Bruce finds himself stroking Clint’s hair instead of pulling at it, and Steve is groaning out a long, low sound that Bruce recognizes from hearing Steve come previously.

“Tony, please,” Steve whispers, and Tony says nothing for another half a dozen blows while Clint’s throat writhes around Bruce’s cock, and then he says, “When you do, make sure you give Clint a reach around,” and Steve groans out a sound of relief and Tony steps back, stops hitting Clint, and Steve bends his long body over Clint’s back and reaches a hand around him to take ahold of his cock.

“You too, Bruce,” Tony orders a little brusquely, and Bruce fumbles down between his body and Clint’s face to find the end of the cock ring. 

Steve comes first, murmuring, “Yeah, Clint, yeah, yes, god,” and then Bruce feels Clint tighten, his throat clamping down on Bruce’s cock like a wet, hot fist, and he fumbles, still trying to catch the end of the cockring, he’s too overwhelmed and he feels like he’s been rung like a bell, almost, like he is barely an echo of himself, and then Tony’s hand is brushing his hand aside and Tony catches the end of the ring on the first try and jerks the snaps loose, pulling it free, and Clint has both hands on Bruce’s hips now, and Bruce drops the hand that had been fumbling for the cockring back into Clint’s hair, and he can hear himself making almost the same kind of sound that Clint had been making, high and helpless and whining, and when he comes, it’s so hard that if Clint’s hands hadn’t been holding him up he might have fallen forward, and he can feel Clint’s throat working around his cock even as he pumps his come down Clint’s throat, can feel it and it just drags his orgasm out deeper and longer and, makes it all so much more crushingly intense, but he still feels it when Clint comes. His body tightens and his hands are punishing on Bruce’s hips, and even then Clint doesn’t pull back right away, though he must need to, his lungs must be aching for air, but stays down until Bruce’s cock, softening, slips out of Clint’s throat on it’s own. Clint gasps in a shuddering, hoarse breath and coughs a little, while still somehow managing to keep Bruce’s cock in his mouth, and finally does pull off because Bruce, numb and dazed, pulls him gently back by the hair, so that Clint shoves his face into Bruce’s hip and breathes in harsh, gulping sounds. Bruce is swaying on his knees, and Clint is still managing to hold him up by his hips.

He knows Steve has pulled out of Clint because Clint goes still and makes a short, “Ah, ah,” sound, and then Steve is curling along Clint’s back, wrapping his arms around Clint’s waist and pressing his face against the middle of his back where all the welts are, which makes Clint groan against Bruce’s skin, his hands first tightening, and then loosening around Bruce’s hips. 

Tony climbs up onto the bed and puts a careful arm around Bruce’s back, low, where Phil hadn’t caned him, and Clint seems to take this as permission to let Bruce go. He does, and then slides slowly sideways, his face streaked with tears and his mouth red and swollen and well used looking. Steve falls with him at first, and then, when they are both down, gets an elbow under him and curls around Clint’s back while they both lie on their sides. Tony gently urges Bruce into motion, and Bruce falls forward onto his hand and knees, still feeling dazed and disconnected from his body, but that is apparently alright with Tony, who merely uses his hands on both of Bruce’s shoulders to turn him so that he’s facing the head of the bed. “Lie down before you collapse, Bruce,” Tony instructs, and Bruce lets his trembling muscles go entirely loose and crumples down onto his belly with both arms still trapped underneath him. Tony rolls him patiently onto his side, so that Bruce is facing Clint, and then settles down behind Bruce, his skin no more than an inch away from Bruce’s, but not touching, except for Tony’s hard on, which is dragging lightly along his ass. 

Bruce shudders at the feel of it, wonders if Tony is going to fuck him now, wonders whether he can take it, wonders if Tony might fuck Clint or Steve instead, and is surprised to find himself more interested in seeing it than envious of it happening. 

Clint’s eyes are closed and he’s still breathing in deep, heaving rasps. Steve, behind him, goes up to one elbow and looks over Clint’s body, his gaze lingering on Bruce for a long moment, before it moves behind him and fixes on Tony. He doesn’t say anything, though, and Bruce is still too lost in his head to wonder all that hard about what the look might mean. He feels weak-limbed and wonderful, his mind seems to be floating somewhere about three feet above his body, and his back and ass are aching in the best way. When Clint opens his eyes, they are stormy and piercing, but he smiles at Bruce, and Bruce smiles back and reaches out for him with one hand. Clint leans toward him, and they manage to get close enough to exchange a kind of heated but exhausted kiss, the kind of kiss that might go somewhere if either of them had anything left to give, but since they don’t, it’s just a faint echo of what had come before it, a confirmation of it, and kissing Clint feels perfectly fine, as natural as touching Steve, as comfortable as touching Phil after the caning. He wonders distantly if Tony had planned it that way, hoping for that, or if he just hadn’t wanted to leave Clint out, didn’t want to take Bruce and Steve into the bedroom and leave Clint left out. It could be either, or even both. Tony is totally capable of doing it for both reasons at the same time. Even so, Bruce is glad, and when they fall away from the kiss, Bruce smiles at Clint, and manages an unsteady, “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Clint says, voice raspy and hoarse, clearly still feeling the rawness of having his throat filled up with Bruce’s cock, and Bruce feels Tony roll off the side of the bed and senses him moving toward the door, and is sure enough that he’s just going to get Clint something to drink that he can’t make himself feel too concerned about Tony leaving him alone. And he’s not alone. Steve and Clint are here, and Clint’s stormy eyes are half-lidded and still heated, but sharp too, and Bruce thinks he understands what Steve had meant about seeing Clint in his subspace and not wanting it the way he had wanted what he had seen of Bruce in his own. Clint is still sharp, still present, his gaze banked a little, but not really at rest, like he might snap out of his subspace at any moment and either be just Clint again, or be the top that Bruce had glimpsed in him yesterday after the caning. It’s not that Clint’s subspace is shallow, the way that Steve’s had been; it’s more like it doesn’t entirely settle him the way it does for Bruce, or like Clint doesn’t need to be settled like that for his subspace to work for him.

Tony comes back in with two bottles of water. He twists the lid off one of them and hands it to Clint, who goes up on one elbow to drink deeply. “Share that with Steve,” Tony says, and opens the other bottle of water and offers it to Bruce. Bruce also manages to get an elbow under him, though it pulls painfully at his back, and drinks as well, though he doesn’t need it quite as much as Clint must have. He passes the bottle back to Tony at the same time that Clint holds his own bottle up for Steve to take. Steve takes a long swallow, and then slides it back down in front of Clint.

“Drink the rest, if you want it,” Steve says, and Clint apparently does. He drains the bottle, caps it, and then gives it to Tony when Tony holds a hand out for it. Tony drops it over the side of the bed without looking to see where it will land.

“Let me see your back, Clint,” Tony says, and Clint’s lips quirk upward, but his eyes are still dark and heavy-lidded. He merely rolls over onto his belly and reveals his back and ass to everyone on the bed. His ass is bright red and welted in more than a few places, but a few inches up, in the middle of Clint’s back, is where the real damage is. Because of his position on the bed, Tony had not really been able to get to his shoulders, so the middle of his back is where the skin is a bright, angry red, and welts are raised all along it, criss crossing in spots, which means Tony must have moved to change the direction from which he was striking at some point. None of the welts are bleeding, but some are already darkening into bruises, testament that some of them had come close. “How does it feel?” Tony asks.

Clint rolls back over to measure Tony with his gaze. “Better than anything you’ve ever done to me before,” he says, with just a trace of challenge in his tone. Then, as though he’s compelled into honesty by something he sees on Tony’s face, he adds, “I could have taken more, but probably not _much_ more. Not in that one spot, anyway.”

“I can spread it around next time, when I don’t have you trapped between Bruce and Steve,” Tony says, sounding amused. Bruce doesn’t doubt that Tony had phrased it the way he had on purpose, that he’s deliberately reminding Clint that Tony had trapped him where he had been, and then had beaten him while he had him there. Clint’s eyes flash, but his lips only curl a little more.

“Someday you’re going to let me top you, Tony,” he says, and says it as though he’s sure of it.

To Bruce’s surprise, Tony doesn’t immediately deny this intent. He merely says, “Sometime when you think you can, come on and we’ll find out, Clint.”

“Did you fight Phil for the honor?” Clint asks, his tone lilting around the edge of a sneer now. 

“No. Coulson asked and I said yes. If you want to do the same, I’ll consider it. But if you just come at me one day, I’ll make you work for it, make no mistake.”

Clint’s eyes darken again, still a little sharp, but not challenging Tony to anything. Not now, anyway. “I’ll think about it,” is all he says.

“Think hard,” Tony says, but oddly gently. Bruce sees Clint shiver and his eyes momentarily flutter closed. Just seeing it is enough to make Bruce’s belly heat, and he hopes he’ll be there to see it, however it happens between the two of them. He glances at Steve, and sees him lick his lips, his expression almost mirroring what Bruce is sure his own must be showing. Low and churning desire laced with speculation, anticipation, and the hope that he’ll be there to see it when it happens. Steve catches his look, flushes faintly, and then just looks at Bruce, not trying to hide anything. Bruce smiles.

“Steve and I volunteer to referee,” Bruce says, and Steve grins. Clint lets out a sharp bark of a laugh, and Tony gives a lower, more rumbling chuckle.

“Where are you sitting, Bruce?” Tony asks.

“Maybe about a 1, Tony,” Bruce says, though it might have been lower if he’d asked before he and Clint had had their little verbal wrangle. 

“Too low to want to fuck Steve?” Tony asks, and strokes a hand across his back lightly, but in a way that is clearly and deliberately meant to wake up the pain lingering just under Bruce’s skin.

“No,” Bruce says softly, shivering under Tony’s hand. “I still want to fuck Steve. I don’t think how submissive I’m feeling has anything to do with it. I think that it’s just that I’ve got eyes.”

Steve blushes, and Clint laughs softly. Tony nuzzles the back of Bruce’s jaw for a moment, his mouth soft, and then drags his teeth along the hinge. Bruce shivers pleasantly, and his cock begins to fill at the idea that he might actually finally be allowed to fuck Steve. It’s too soon, it will take him a little longer to be really ready, but he’s well on his way.

“What about you, Steve?” Tony asks. “Still want Bruce to fuck you?”

“Yes,” Steve say simply, cheeks still flushed prettily, but his eyes swimming a little with eddies of that easy submission that he drops into so quickly.

“Does one of us get to fuck Bruce while he fucks Steve?” Clint asks, eyes a little sharper now with desire.

“No,” Tony says. “No one gets to fuck Bruce until he can take it without it feeling like the skin is being peeled off his back and ass.”

Bruce, who would let one of them, if they wanted to, does not argue with this. He would let one of them, yes, but Tony is not wrong. It would definitely test his limits on how much pain he can reasonably endure. He will be using the bruised and abused muscles in his back and ass if he fucks Steve. He thinks he could take one or the other, but not both together. He wonders when Tony gets to have an orgasm, during all of this, but he doesn’t really worry about it. He can’t really worry about it. His subspace is too strong, and he knows that Tony will let him know if he needs Bruce to do something to facilitate an orgasm on Tony’s behalf.

Tony slides his hand down Bruce’s back, leaving Bruce shuddering in response, and then slips it around his waist to drop it in front of his body, his hand curling around Bruce’s half-hard cock. “Will you be able to?” Tony asks.

“Because of my back or because of my hard on?” Bruce asks.

“Either,” Tony says. “Both.”

“I’m pretty sure I can despite my back,” Bruce says. “It’s going to be a few more minutes for my hard on to catch up. Clint’s mouth…” he begins, but then doesn’t know what he wants to say about Clint’s mouth.

Clint smiles, eyes heavy-lidded again. “Thank you,” he says, his lips curled faintly. “It’s good to be appreciated.”

“I appreciate you,” Bruce says fervently. “I’ve been deep throated before, but never for so long, and never as… as intensely. Nobody has ever let me come while I was still buried in their throat like that. It was amazing.”

“Steve and Tony are neglecting you?” Clint asks, looking amused.

“Steve and Tony can’t even quite get each other all the way down, let alone Bruce,” Tony says, sounding faintly embarrassed by it.

Clint’s eyes widen. “No shit?” he demands, looking over his shoulder to look at Steve. “Neither of you?”

“I might be able to now,” Steve says, blushing hotly, and not meeting anyone’s eyes. “Phil and I… that is to say, I’m not really sure how it happened with Phil, but I managed it last night. I’m not sure I really know how, still, but I’ve done it at least once.”

Clint’s eyes gentle a little. “If you’ve managed it once, you’ll get it again. It’s all a matter of practice and finding the right angle. If getting your wind cut off doesn’t scare you too much, you’ll get it.”

“It doesn’t,” Steve says. “Scare me, I mean. Once I got past my gag reflex and it was actually in my throat, it was actually weirdly relaxing.”

Bruce laughs a little this time. “I’ve always found it that way,” he admits. “Once you aren’t worried about puking or breathing, you just sort of let everything else go, too.”

“Phil taught me, too,” Clint tells Steve. “He’s good at it. Patient.”

“Maybe I should ask Coulson for lessons,” Tony murmurs, and Bruce shivers a little at the idea of seeing Tony on his knees for Phil. Clint’s eyes do that thing again, that heavy-lidded look that Bruce understands means that Clint is feeling the pull of submission. Steve’s eyes had already been eddying with those pulls, but they deepen a little, and his mouth drops a little open, his breath leaving him in a little hitch. Tony chuckles. “Am I going to have to invite you all to be an audience, if I do ask for lessons?” he asks, sounding amused, but serious, too, like he actually would let them all watch if they wanted to.

“I’d like to see it,” Bruce admits.

“Count me in,” Clint agrees.

“Yes,” Steve says, blushing again. “If you won’t be embarrassed.”

“I hardly ever get embarrassed,” Tony says. “It’s just my luck that the guys I’ve been sleeping with lately have been better hung than the ones in my past. I’ve been able to do it before. Just not to anyone as big as Steve or Bruce.”

“I’m feeling a little left out here,” Clint says, amused again, eyes sharp.

Tony tips his gaze down below Clint’s navel and considers him for several long seconds. “I could probably take you,” he says finally. “Not definitely, but you aren’t as long as Steve and you’re not as wide as Bruce, so probably. You’re still on the bigger end of the rest of my sexual experience scale.”

“I’m a little surprised,” Clint says, but not teasingly; he sounds like he really is a little surprised to find this out about Tony. “I would have guessed that when you bottomed, at least, you’d be a size queen. No offense, Tony, but you kind of give off that diva vibe.”

Tony laughs out loud. “I have no doubt,” Tony says. “But I don’t bottom very often, and size was never what I looked for in a partner when I have.”

Bruce would kind of like to ask what Tony had looked for in a partner when he chose to bottom, but decides to leave it alone, at least until Clint and Steve have cleared out. He’d like to know, but there’s no urgency in the desire. Just mild curiosity. He’s a lot more focused on Tony’s hand, still curled loosely around his cock, not stroking or encouraging, but just holding. That alone is enough for at least some of it; Bruce is probably three quarters of the way to hard now, rather than half. If Tony were to really work on him, Bruce doubts it would take much. But he doesn’t ask for that either.

He does want to fuck Steve, he really does, but his mind is still not very firmly settled into his body, his thoughts are still a loose and messy tangle. It’s hard to worry about whether he’s going to get to fuck Steve right now, when Tony seems to be planning on it, and Steve has already agreed. It’s just a matter of time, and Bruce will be ready when he is ready.

“Did you really invite me in here because I was the only one who could deep throat Bruce?” Clint asks, now sounding merely curious. “I mean, you could have just brought them in here and let Bruce fuck Steve. They’ve both been waiting for it.”

“But that wouldn’t have been very fair to Steve, according to Bruce,” Tony says. “He was too close.”

“Then you could have slapped the cockring on him. He’s clearly conditioned not to be able to come with it on,” Clint points out.

Tony shrugs. “There was no reason to leave you out if Bruce didn’t object to having you with us. He didn’t. I’m glad it worked out that you could deepthroat Bruce, take Steve’s cock, and take a beating from me, all at the same time, though.” Tony’s voice has gone low and edged. “I’m glad we didn’t miss out on finding that out.”

“Agreed,” Steve says, and leans into the back of Clint’s body, close enough that he has to be leaning against the welts on his back and ass.

Clint hitches in a little breath and then hitches out a laugh. “Yeah, I’m not complaining,” he says. “I just. I honestly thought you would have invited one of the others to join you first. Natasha maybe, because she takes the most care. Or Thor, because all he really wants is to watch. Even Phil.”

“I don’t get to dominate three subs at once all that often, Clint,” Tony says. “Why in the world would I not want to when the opportunity presented itself? If you were me, wouldn’t you have wanted to try?”

Clint laughs a little and relaxes back against Steve, so that the whole back of his body is pressed against Steve’s front without Steve having to lean into him. “Yeah, I would have,” he admits. “It’s too bad, really, that you don’t have many submissive leanings. Having the three of you at once would be…” He pauses to lick his lips. “It would be amazing.”

“The next time I’m feeling at all submissive, you’ll be the first to know, Clint,” Tony says seriously.

Clint licks his lips again. “Yeah. Alright.” He glances down between his own body and Bruce’s and sees Tony’s hand wrapped around Bruce’s almost fully hard cock. He reaches down and wraps his hand around what Tony’s hand isn’t curled around, twitching his fingers a little, as though to brush Tony’s hand aside. To Bruce’s surprise, Tony moves his hand and lets Clint’s strong, blunt fingers explore Bruce’s cock. He looks at Bruce for a moment, his eyes sharp now, not submissive in the least. “Lean back against Tony,” he orders, not sharp or hard, but unmistakably an order. Bruce is so surprised that he does it without thought, at the same time that Tony slips closer to him on the bed, so that Bruce’s back, ass, and thighs are pressed tightly against Tony’s hot skin. Bruce hisses in pain, but his cock jerks in Clint’s hand, and Clint smiles a little at the expression on Bruce’s face. “Stay nice and loose against him, Bruce. No trying to pull away. Tell me you understand.”

“I understand,” Bruce says, and can hear the almost stunned surprise in his own voice at Clint suddenly taking control of this situation.

Clint frowns a little and looks over Bruce’s shoulder at Tony. “You don’t make him use an honorific?” he asks.

“He does, either sir or just my name, which is enough of an honorific when it’s said the way he says it,” Tony says matter-of-factly, which makes Bruce’s face heat, and he cuts his gaze away from Clint’s, feeling abruptly shy.

“Look at me,” Clint says, and the demand in his voice is enough to drag Bruce’s gaze back to him. His cock is jerking hard in the curl of Clint’s fist now, and Bruce isn’t sure why. It’s just that it is all so unexpected. “Same rule as with Tony, Bruce. Either sir or my name, when you answer me. So tell me again that you understand that I don’t want you to pull away from Tony.”

Bruce’s face stays hot, but he manages to whisper, “I understand, Clint.”

“Good,” Clint says, and then closes his fist down tight around Bruce’s cock. Bruce jerks at the tightness, though it doesn’t quite hurt, it’s not quite that fierce, but it drags the back of his body against Tony’s hot skin, and makes him let out a trembling little moan. Clint’s hand is calloused, like Tony’s, but there are more callouses, from bow and knife and gun instead of just from tools, and the drag of those callouses up Bruce’s cock shoots straight to the rekindling flame of desire in the cradle of Bruce’s hipbones. He lets out a little gasp and starts to lean toward Clint automatically, almost helplessly, and Clint lets go of his cock and shoves him back against Tony, who has gone tensely immovable behind him, hard enough to shake a little cry loose from Bruce’s throat. “What did I tell you?” Clint asks, his tone flinty.

“Not to pull away from Tony, Clint,” Bruce says, his pulse abruptly pounding in his ears, the flicker of desire roosting at the base of his spine abruptly blazing to life. He can hear how breathless his own voice is, can hear the note of fear in it, and is a little thrilled at it, and he still can’t tell exactly why he’s reacting this way. All he can come up with, again, is that it is all just so unexpected. 

“And what did you do?” Clint asks in that new flinty voice.

“I… I disobeyed you, Clint,” Bruce flounders carefully, and has to restrain his hands, which want to reach out to Clint and… do something, he’s not sure what. Bring him back down into submission with Bruce like before? Stroke across his skin so that Clint knows that Bruce hadn’t meant to disobey. “I’m sorry,” Bruce whispers.

“You’re forgiven,” Clint says. “Don’t do it again.” Then Clint’s hand is closing around Bruce’s cock again, and Bruce forces his body to go loose, leaning back into Tony’s body with all his weight, but he can’t keep his hips from rocking into Clint’s hand as Clint strokes his cock, still looking down between their bodies as he does it. “No wonder Steve wants you to fuck him,” Clint says thoughtfully. “I was pretty sure when I had you in my mouth, but looking at you makes it even more obvious. Phil may be just a touch longer than you are, but you’re wider.” His eyes flick up to Bruce’s and he smiles briefly into them. “Harder to swallow around.” Clint keeps stroking him, and because he hadn’t objected, Bruce keeps rocking his hips into each stroke, though doing it pushes the rest of his back harder against Tony’s chest, and he can feel Tony’s cock sliding against his ass every time he pulls back. “Keep your hips still,” Clint says, and Bruce freezes where he is, half rocked forward into Clint’s hand. His callouses are driving Bruce crazy, and the pain of his back pressed against Tony’s chest is pushing him the rest of the way there. He tries to be still while Clint slips his thumb through the precome streaming from the slit of Bruce’s cock and then slides it around the glans, rubbing back and forth just at the bottom of the glans, in the sweet spot, which makes Bruce shudder and gasp and fight to hold himself still.

“Steve, are you ready?” Tony asks, and Bruce looks past Clint and into Steve’s face, which is flushed with want rather than embarrassment now, Bruce is pretty sure. His mouth is open, and he’s staring down at Clint’s hand around Bruce’s cock.

He jerks a little when Tony says his name, as though he’s waking, but he manages to say, “Yes, Tony, if Bruce still… if he wants me.”

Clint laughs a little. “Do you want him?” he asks Bruce.

“Yes, of course I do,” Bruce says, his voice unsteady, but as certain as he’s capable of making it right now.

Clint releases his cock and slaps him across the cheek, not hard, but hard enough to rock Bruce’s head back and surprise him. A moment later, Clint has his hand around Bruce’s cock again, squeezing hard. “Try again,” Clint says, and Bruce is more embarrassed by his lapse than anything.

“Of course I do, Clint,” he says thickly. “I’m sorry.”

“You’re forgiven,” Clint says, and his hand eases around Bruce’s cock. “Is it just because you’re not used to dealing with me as a dominant, or are you always so unruly for Tony?” he asks. 

Bruce would like to look back over his shoulder at Tony to see how he should answer, but he suspects that would get him into trouble with Clint. “I think it’s just because I’m not used to you dominating me, Clint,” Bruce says. “I hope I’m not unruly for Tony.”

Tony kisses the bottom hinge of Bruce’s jaw. “You’re not,” he soothes, but he drags a hand up Bruce’s side and across to the middle of his back anyway, which makes Bruce gasp out little helpless sounds of pain even as Clint starts to stroke his cock again.

“Find the lube, Steve,” Clint says, and Steve uncurls his body out from around Clint’s and goes up to his knees, his eyes scanning the bed for the tube of lube. He finds it, eventually, tucked into one of the folds of the comforter, which they had managed, between the four of them, to shove all the way down to the foot of the bed. “Do you want to get him ready, or would you like him made ready for you?” Clint asks.

Bruce’s mouth goes dry at the idea of watching Clint or Tony making Steve ready to take him, and he’s too far into subspace to dissemble. “Please, I’d like one of you to do it, Clint.” Clint leans forward and brushes a soft kiss against Bruce’s lips. Then he lets go of Bruce’s cock and rises to his knees. Bruce sees that he isn’t the only one who had gotten all the way hard again during that encounter. When Clint shifts toward the middle of the bed, he sees that Steve is hard as well. And he can feel Tony, still hard, against his ass. Tony catches Bruce by the upper arms and helps him sit up, which makes his ass ache punishingly for several long seconds until Tony gets his own knees under him, and then pulls Bruce back up to his knees, still tugged back so that he’s pressed against the front of Tony’s body, every inch of his back and ass overheated and awash with pain.

“Do you want him tied down?” Clint asks Bruce, and Bruce starts to say no, but then remembers what Tony had said to Steve the night of the spanking, that being tied down was probably something he was going to discover he liked as much as, if not more than, the pain.

“Only if he wants to be, Clint,” Bruce says finally.

“Do you?” Clint asks Steve, and Steve says nothing for several long moments. “Steve,” Clint prompts in that flinty tone.

“Yes,” Steve whispers, just barely loudly enough for Bruce to hear him over the sound of his own blood rushing in his ears. He abruptly wants Steve desperately, immediately, and has to fight back the desire to simply push Clint aside and grab Steve and pull him down onto his belly and push inside his spectacular ass, ready or not. Tony strokes his arms gently.

“Easy, Bruce,” he murmurs, and the urge to drag Steve onto his belly and just shove his cock into him passes, or at least mostly passes.

At the head of the bed, Clint is rearranging the cuffs from where they’d been to let Bruce sleep on his side. He removes the length of chain Tony had used, and drops it over the side of the bed in a metallic clanking slither. Then he stretches Steve’s wrists out along the bar at the head of the bed. “Hold them there,” Clint says, and Bruce watches Steve shudder and shudders himself in response to it. Clint buckles one of Steve’s wrists down and then circles around behind him to come up on the other side of him to buckle down the other. Then he circles behind Steve, one hand pressed to the small of his back, and kneels to the side of him, so that Bruce and Tony can see what he’s doing from where they are at the foot of the bed. He picks up the tube of lube and taps the insides of Steve’s thighs with the end of it. “Spread, Steve,” he says, and Steve hitches in a little breath, and does as he’s told, spreading his thighs wide and giving Bruce another almost undeniable urge to simply fall on him, push him down, take him.

“Easy,” Tony says again, and this time wraps his arms around Bruce’s waist and closes one hand around his cock, as though he’s more certain of his ability to control Bruce that way. Bruce supposes he’s even right. The need to take Steve, the need to have him, and right away, has nothing to do with wanting to assert any kind of dominance over Steve. It’s a totally submissive wanting really, and one that, because of its total neediness, Bruce has almost no control over. He needs Tony or Clint, or both, to stop him. If not for their control, he would be need-blinded, possibly even a little dangerous to Steve. He would like to think not, but he’s seen things like that happen before, when a sub had been given free reign over another sub.

He deliberately settles himself back against Tony and even presses his back and ass against him, waking up the pain and thereby gaining back a little bit of his mind. He doesn’t want to hurt Steve. Not really. Not in a way that Steve won’t enjoy.

Clint drizzles lube onto the first two fingers of his left hand, and then slides them between the cheeks of Steve’s ass, just stroking, not trying to gain entry, but just an easy, simple slide of fingertips across Steve’s hole. Steve lets out a long, harsh breath that he’d apparently been holding, and drops down onto his elbows, his ass rising up a little in that position. Bruce takes his own deep breath at the sight and holds it, watching as Clint slicks his fingers against Steve’s hole again, and then gently eases one inside. Bruce can tell the motion is gentle, but Clint doesn’t stop until the finger is buried all the way in Steve’s ass, and then he turns his wrist so that it’s facing down and tugs it back out, then in again, but this time at the right angle to stroke across Steve’s prostate, because Steve lets out a brief cry and his back curves in a hard arc, pushing his ass up even higher into the air.

Bruce shudders and lets the breath he’d been holding go, and Tony tightens his grip on Bruce’s cock. Bruce whispers, “God, Clint, hurry, please,” because it’s been so long and Steve looks so good like that. Clint doesn’t turn to look at him, just draws his finger back out of Steve and slides the other slicked up finger in with the first. He doesn’t speed up, and he still takes the time to drag his fingertips along Steve’s prostate, judging by the sound Steve makes.

He does ask, “How long has it been since you’ve had your pole in a hole, Bruce?” He sounds glitteringly amused, but also like he wants a real answer.

“Years. Six or seven,” Bruce says, his voice trembling. “At least six, I’m not sure I remember that clearly, Clint. Please.”

Clint works both fingers into and out of Steve, and the little cries Steve lets out every time Clint brushes against his prostate become more and more urgent, until Bruce is trembling tautly in the circle of Tony’s arms, needy and losing the ability to control his need. Clint begins to scissor his fingers, and Bruce strains against Tony’s arms until Tony catches him by the balls and squeezes hard. Bruce whines deep in his throat, but settles back against Tony’s body, trembling a little with even more pain, but his gaze still glued to Clint’s fingers opening Steve’s body up for Bruce’s cock. Clint draws his fingers out completely -- Steve lets out a brief shout of dismay that makes Bruce’s skin twitch and shiver -- then drizzles more lube over three fingers this time, and when he slides them in between the cheeks of his ass, Steve moans, sounding just as needy as Bruce feels. When Clint presses all three of them in, Steve shouts and stiffens, his back going straight for a long moment, and then it bows again into a gentle arc, leaving his ass tipped up as Clint works his fingers into it, and Steve moans, long and helpless sounding.

Bruce tries to keep himself still and loose, but Steve is letting out desperate little moans each time Clint’s fingers press into him, and he’s losing the battle to stay loose and to wait and to be calm.

“Please,” Bruce whispers hoarsely.

“Easy,” Tony says, “Just be easy a little longer, Bruce,” and then Steve whispers,

“Bruce,” and Bruce goes taut and almost struggling in Tony’s arms, twisting and lunging a little forward, so that Tony has to squeeze his cock and jerk Bruce back hard by the hair before Bruce is able to be still again, and even then, it is a trembling stillness, so that he’s straining just a little toward Steve’s body, Tony’s hand still pulling at his hair and punishingly tight around his cock.

Clint has paused with his fingers buried in Steve’s ass and is looking at Bruce, expression watchful and a little cruel. “It’s not Bruce you have to ask, Steve,” Clint says, his eyes glinting and sharp.

Steve immediately begs, “Clint, please, Clint,” and Clint slides his fingers deeply into Steve, making his back bow deeply again and his breath come in hoarse little pants that Bruce doesn’t at first recognize as words, until Clint begins to draw his fingers out of Steve’s body, and then he realizes Steve is whispering, “Please, please, please,” over and over again.

“Tony,” Bruce says, and it’s a plea, but it’s also a warning, Bruce is close to as much as he can take, and he doesn’t want to be bad, he doesn’t want to disappoint Tony or even Clint, but he is shuddering from his thighs to his throat, even his breath coming out in little shuddering gasps, and he can’t take much more.

“Clint,” Tony says, and Clint slides his fingers free of Steve, and Tony opens his arms and lets go of Bruce’s cock, and then Bruce is across the expanse of the bed and on top of Steve, pushing into him even as he’s pushing back some of the need, not all of it, he couldn’t have pushed back all of it, but enough so that he presses Steve open as slowly as he can, because he wants Steve desperately, but he also desperately doesn’t want to hurt Steve.

“Bruce!” Steve wails, and all of Bruce’s care is immediately discarded as Steve raises up to his knees and shoves back onto Bruce’s cock as hard as he can, taking Bruce in all the way in one long, viciously good stroke. Bruce’s head swims and he isn’t sure at all what he’s doing when he pushes Steve back down onto his elbows and then just keeps pushing, until Steve’s chest is resting on the bed. “Bruce,” Steve begs, his voice strangled with need and tears and Bruce pulls back and presses forward again, feeling the clench of another body around his cock for the first time in so long it’s like a whole new feeling again.

“God,” Bruce gasps. “Be still, Steve, for god’s sake, if you want this to last more than a minute, be still,” and Steve, still panting and crying, somehow does manage to go still, and for a moment Bruce is just lying across Steve’s broad back, is just draped across him as though he’d been thrown down and landed just as he is, and then he manages to get his hands and knees up under him and draw out of Steve, feeling Steve tighten down around him, as though to trap him inside, and he heaves in a breath -- he hadn’t realized that he hadn’t been breathing -- and pushes back into the incredible heat and tightness of Steve’s body, trying to go slow, trying to aim his stroke, even, so that it presses against Steve’s prostate, but his mind is in tatters of extreme pleasure and intense pain and base need, and he isn’t sure he manages it. 

Steve is gasping out, “Yes, Bruce, yes, _hard_ ,” and Bruce, lacking other guidance, is doing as Steve says, doing as he’s told because it’s what he knows how to do, so when he draws back he shoves back in hard, with his hands locked around Steve’s hips, dragging him backward even as he pushes inside, deep. Steve shouts out, high and keening, and Bruce recognizes it as a good sound, and he wants to keep hearing Steve making good sounds like that, and he shoves in again, just as hard, maybe harder, as Steve’s keening is broken by a little sob this time, but he hisses, “Yes, yes, Bruce,” and that is enough for Bruce to be sure that he isn’t hurting Steve, that he probably isn’t going to hurt Steve, that he really can have Steve as hard and as fast as he wants, and Bruce lets go of the tattered edges of his thoughts and just does it, just has him, just rams his cock into the tight and writhing body beneath his as hard as he can do it, he does it until he feels his own cock beginning to burn with friction, and doesn’t care, one more slice of pain doesn’t even slow him, and it isn’t until he feels his thighs start to shudder and his rhythm start to falter that he becomes aware of Steve beneath him, whispering, “Please let me come, Bruce, please, please, I need to come, Bruce,” and Bruce manages to get one of his stiff hands to release Steve’s hip and reaches around to grasp Steve’s cock, and Steve gasps harshly, shock and lust, and then he is spurting across the backs of Bruce’s knuckles and his body is twisting and tightening and clenching around Bruce’s sore cock, and Bruce throws back his head and screams out his pleasure, feeling it slam through him like water through a window screen, so that it feels like it travels through his body, through every inch of him, slamming his pulse in his ears and making his toes curl so hard it’s almost like cramping. 

He comes back into his own mind slowly, still bent over the back of Steve’s body. Steve is crying softly, and Bruce would be concerned except that he’s doing the same thing and he recognizes the way the tears sound, he feels the relief in them, the _release_ in them, just like he feels it easing through every inch of his body. He can feel that ease in Steve’s body too, and he manages to get his right hand unwrapped from around Steve’s cock so he can brace it on the bed because they are both tipping precariously in that direction.

“Holy crap,” Clint says, sounding genuinely a little awed. His voice sounds distant compared to the harsh in and out of his own breathing, and of Steve’s beneath him, but he can still hear Clint, and he guesses that’s good. “If you would have waited three seconds, Bruce, I would have slicked you up.” But Clint’s tone sounds like he knows what Bruce knows; that the lack of extra lubrication had been nothing but good for Bruce, and that Steve hadn’t had any objections either. Bruce eases himself a little more upright, and his back and ass scream at him about the exertion, but he’s still so engrossed in the pleasure and the release that he isn’t listening to them. 

He leans forward, still buried in Steve’s body, and unbuckles the cuff around Steve’s left wrist. After several long seconds of rest, he manages to reach over far enough to unbuckle the cuff around his right wrist, as well. Steve presses himself upright, letting out a soft whimper as he shifts, and then he lifts himself carefully off of Bruce’s cock. In almost the same movement, he twists his whole body around, one knee almost knocking Bruce in the chin, and settles across Bruce’s lap. He slings his arms around Bruce’s neck, and Bruce shifts back onto his heels and wraps his arms around Steve, holding him tight while he shakes, still crying a little. Bruce’s ass is still screaming at him, and now he’s aware of the ache of his cock, the raw feeling of not enough lubricant, but he doesn’t care. Steve is pressed up against him, one hand tangled into the curls at the nape of Bruce’s neck and pulling hard, and Bruce doesn’t care about that either. He holds onto Steve until Steve settles, and pushes a little back from Bruce to look at him, his eyes red rimmed and his face dazed and open. Bruce kisses him, carefully, because Steve looks a little like he might start to cry again, and after a few seconds, Steve kisses him back, a little less carefully, clinging to him with kisses almost as hard as he had clung to him with his body. Steve still has a hand knotted into the hair at the nape of Bruce’s neck, but Bruce doesn’t mind. He can take it.

“Give Steve to Clint, Bruce,” Tony says patiently, and Bruce realizes that it is not the first or even the second time that Tony has said it. Steve seems to hear it at the same time, and his hand tightens in Bruce’s hair for a long moment, as though he isn’t planning on letting go, but then Steve does let go, his lips lingering within a whisper of Bruce’s for another ten or fifteen seconds, and then Clint is tugging Steve carefully out of Bruce’s arms and into his own lap. Steve’s eyes don’t leave Bruce for another long span of time, maybe another thirty seconds, and Bruce can’t make himself look away. Then Tony is murmuring in his ear, “Lie down, before you really hurt yourself,” and Tony’s arms go around him, and Bruce turns toward Tony, wanting to fold down into his arms, but he’s more aware now of the pain of his bruised ass, and he lets Tony lower him carefully onto his side and then tuck a pillow under his head. Tony slides down behind him, a careful inch between Bruce’s back and Tony’s front, but he slings an arm around Bruce’s waist. “I’m not even going to ask you if it was all you were hoping for. It obviously was,” Tony says dryly. “Can you speak yet.”

Bruce opens his mouth, closes it again, and then manages to say, “Yes, Tony,” in a raspy voice that he usually associates with long sessions of recreational pain.

“Clint,” Tony says, and Clint waves him silent. He tips Steve onto his side and slides him close to Bruce, so that they are lying face to face, and he tucks a pillow under Steve’s head. Then he slides down off the bed and disappears out of the bedroom. “Steve?” Tony says, his tone careful.

“Yes, Tony?” Steve asks, still sounding dazed and lost, and Bruce realizes that Steve is deeply in subspace, more deeply than Bruce has ever seen him, that Bruce had fucked him bound down and tipped him into subspace so deep that even Tony doesn’t know what to expect from him. Maybe Phil would, if Phil were here, but maybe he wouldn’t, yet. Maybe this is Steve’s first time.

“Are you hurt?” Tony asks, voice still careful.

“No,” Steve says, a smile slowly blooming across his face. “I feel good.” He’s staring at Bruce again, and Bruce realizes that Steve’s lower lip is a little ragged, as if he’d bitten his lip a few times while Bruce had fucked him, hard enough to tear skin, if not spill blood. Bruce wants to lean close and lick across Steve’s ragged lower lip, but he doesn’t do it.

“Good,” Tony says. “You’re supposed to feel good. If you stop feeling good, make sure to tell someone right away.”

“Okay,” Steve says, fine dark brows drawing together for a moment, then smoothing back out. “I’m thirsty.”

“Clint is getting us drinks,” Tony says, and even as he says it, Clint is circling around the foot of the bed with his arms full of plastic bottles. 

“Do you want juice or water?” Clint asks, apparently of no one in particular or everyone in general.

“Juice,” Steve says, turning just his upper body to look at Clint. “The red one.” Clint dumps the armload of bottles on the bed, opens the red one -- Bruce sees it’s one of the Naked juices he likes to get for himself, and Tony must have ordered them when he’d ordered groceries, and Bruce is feeling a good deal more warmly pleased by that than is really reasonable, but he can’t seem to help it -- and hands it to Steve. Steve props himself up on one elbow and swallows down half the bottle at one go. He lays back down, the bottle tipping precariously in his hand, and Clint rescues it quickly, caps it, and sets it on one of the bedside tables.

“Bruce?” Clint asks.

“I’ll have the Gold Machine,” Bruce says, and watches Clint search through labels until he finds the right one, and then twists the lid off of it. He hands it to Tony, not to Bruce, and Bruce realizes he has to prove he can sit up enough to handle the juice before he is given custody of the juice. He’s softly amused at this, but gets an elbow under him, and accepts the juice as Tony passes it to him from behind. He drinks as much as Steve, but doesn’t lie down again right away, and doesn’t lose his bottle privileges by nearly spilling his juice. He just waits a minute or so to see how his throat feels, decides it’s still fairly raw, and drains the rest of the bottle. Clint accepts the empty, caps it, and sets it next to Steve’s half-finished drink. 

“I have Blue Machine, Berry Blast, Strawberry Banana, and water,” Clint tells Tony. 

“I’ll take the water,” Tony says.

“Great, me too.” He passes a bottle of water to Tony, keeps one for himself, and puts the rest of the bottles of juice and water on the bedside table, too, which is looking pretty crowded now. Then he climbs back up onto the bed and settles in behind Steve, who murmurs something contented sounding, but has closed his eyes and looks like he might not be thinking of opening them any time soon.

“How about you,” Tony asks, and presses the cold bottle of water against the uppermost part of his hot back. Bruce sighs a little at how soothing it feels against his superheated skin.

“How about me, what, Tony?” Bruce asks. “Or were you talking to Clint?” Bruce frowns. Had he missed part of the conversation? He knows he does sometimes, when he’s this deeply in subspace, but he had thought he was mostly following along.

“No, I was talking to you. Are you hurt?” Tony asks, sounding amused.

“No, Tony,” Bruce says. “I’m a little raw, and my back and ass are hurting me, but I’m not hurt. Why would I be?”

Clint laughs. “The way you took him, it wouldn’t have surprised me if you’d pulled something doing it, and that’s not counting the damage you took from the caning yesterday. Tony is just checking in, just like he’s supposed to. Don’t give me that look, if you’d seen how hard you fucked him, you’d be checking in, too.”

“I’m fine,” Bruce says, and looks down his body at his limp cock, which looks a little raw and red in places. “A little raw,” he repeats. “But otherwise I’m fine. It was…” He shudders a little, heedless of how the motion pulls at his back and ass. “It was so good. It has been so long, and Steve is…” He doesn’t know how to finish that sentence. Too many adjectives fit well there, and he knows he’s not thinking clearly.

“Steve certainly is,” Clint says, sounding fondly amused now.

“What about the two of you?” Bruce asks.

Clint’s brows arch slightly. “Are we hurt, you mean?” he asks, and then doesn’t pause to give Bruce a moment to tell him that’s not what he means. “My back and ass are sore but probably nowhere near as sore as yours, and as far as I could tell, Tony hasn’t done anything to get himself hurt yet.” He tips a smirk at Tony, a little almost ‘I dare you,’ look, but Bruce can’t see how Tony reacts to it, since Tony is still behind him.

“I actually meant what about orgasms for the two of you,” Bruce says a little uncertainly. “I got to have two and Steve got to have two, but you and Tony both only got one, Clint.”

“When did Tony get one?” Clint asks.

“Before we came out for breakfast,” Tony supplies easily. “And don’t worry about it, Bruce. We’re not keeping score. If Clint and I want additional orgasms, we can arrange for them to happen without your help.”

Bruce bites his lower lip. “I’m sorry,” he murmurs, and Tony kisses him behind his ear, which makes Bruce shiver.

“You don’t have to be sorry for caring that we get our share of the orgasms,” Tony tells him, and it sounds like he’s smiling. “You just don’t have to worry about it either. You’re not responsible for making sure the two men topping you don’t feel neglected. If we do, we’ll make arrangements.”

“Okay, Tony,” Bruce says softly, but he still worries about Tony and Clint getting their share of orgasms. He can’t help it. He’s just made to be aware of his dominant’s needs. Or his dominants’ needs. Or whatever. He can feel Tony’s cock still hard and brushing up against his ass every time one of them takes a breath. He can’t see Clint from behind Steve, but he’s willing to bet Clint is in the same shape.

“Six or Seven years,” Clint muses. “Is that just giving, or is that how long it had been for everything before Tony?” he asks.

“That’s how long it had been before Tony,” Bruce says. “For anything. For all of it.”

Clint reaches out and strokes the fingertips of his right hand along Bruce’s jaw line. “Poor Bruce,” he says, and Bruce blinks rapidly and looks away. “No wonder it’s so hard for you to just be with people,” Clint says. “No wonder you can’t accept that we want you here just because we say so.”

“I’m more than halfway there,” Bruce says, his throat only a little tight.

“How are you measuring that?” Clint asks curiously.

“With people,” Bruce says, and then knows it sounds stupid as soon as he says it. He flushes deeply, but admits, “With people that I’m sure can touch me, and that I can touch back, and that I know I can depend on to keep touching me. People that are steady for me.”

“You can depend on me to keep touching you, Bruce. I want to be steady for you,” Clint says seriously.

“You are,” Bruce says, still flushing. “I know you are. I can feel it when you touch me now.”

“But you didn’t know this morning, before Tony invited me into bed with you, did you?” Clint asks.

“Not for sure,” Bruce admits. “Sure enough that I didn’t object to Tony inviting you to come to bed with us, but not totally sure until sometime during.”

“And you’re sure of Tony and Steve, but you said you were more than halfway there, so there must be one more of us. Phil?” Clint asks.

Bruce nods.

“Why?” Clint wants to know.

“He hurt me more than he intended to going into it because he could tell that I needed it, and he wouldn’t leave me still needing it,” Bruce tries to explain. “It was supposed to be an experiment, Steve and I should have been given exactly the same, but he didn’t stop, even when he knew Steve wouldn’t be able to take what I needed. He did that for me, without even asking for Tony’s permission, but just because I needed it, and he wanted to give it to me.”

“He had my nominal permission, at least,” Tony says at once. “It was an experiment, and we intended for both of you to take essentially the same amount of damage, but before that it was because he wanted to teach me how to cane my submissive. If he’d have stopped with what he thought Steve could take, it would have been an incomplete lesson for me, and Bruce is right about Coulson not being the kind of dominant that would stop before he had given anyone subbing for him everything they needed.”

“You’re not bothered by the fact that he fucked Steve afterward, but not you?” Clint asks.

“Not really. I’d like him to fuck me, but I didn’t need it. Steve needed the reassurance, after taking the cane for Phil. He needed the closeness, the sex. I had Tony for that right away, if I needed it. I think he would have fucked me on the cross if Tony had given him permission ahead of time, but I didn’t know it would be okay then. I didn’t know until sometime in the middle.” Bruce tries to shrug, and then winces a little as it pulls at his shoulders and back. “It’s not a thing I have to have from him to make him feel steady for me. It’s a thing I’d like, because I’m greedy, but not a thing I really need from him, especially as long as Steve still needs all of his attention.”

Clint looks at Tony. “Are you planning on giving Phil a shot at him?”

“All Coulson has to do is ask,” Tony says easily. “But he may be a little too wrapped up in Steve for a while to think about it.”

“He’s just as capable as you are of topping two subs at once,” Clint says, as though he knows from experience.

“We’ll see about it once we’re a little clearer on whether or not Steve wants to share,” Tony says, and reaches around Bruce to stroke a hand through Steve’s mussed hair where it’s splayed out across the pillow. Steve doesn’t even stir.

Clint chuckles. “You wiped him out, Bruce,” he says, tone congratulatory. “Well done.”

“I think he doesn’t know how to be in subspace yet,” Bruce says. “I was like that at first a lot of the time. If I got pushed deeper into subspace than I knew how to deal with, I just went to sleep. Now I like to stay awake for it if I can, but I can still almost fall asleep at will if I’m in subspace. I didn’t really top him, but it was hard enough and he was close enough to the edge, that he just dropped over.”

Clint is looking past Bruce at Tony again. “You didn’t think to talk him through any of it?”

“I just told him if he started not to feel good, he should let one of us know,” Tony says. “Coulson deserves the chance to teach him how to navigate his subspace if he wants to do it. I’m going to give them both all the chances they want with each other. I’ll never kick Steve out of my bed, and if it seems like Coulson isn’t taking him in hand, I’ll do it, but Coulson wants him, and I have no desire to get in the way of that.”

“I knew that Phil wanted him,” Clint says. “I just wasn’t sure you knew how much Phil wants him.”

“I’m aware,” Tony says a little flatly. Then his tone is a little gentler when he adds, “We do talk sometimes, Clint. I have subbed for him. I’m pretty clear on his wants and needs. And if he hadn’t wanted Steve so damned badly that he was willing to set his innate sadism aside, he’d have stopped inviting Steve to bed with him. We only know that it’s not going to be entirely necessary because Steve and Bruce were both very brave the other night.”

“I heard,” Clint says, and glances back at Bruce. “Good instincts, Bruce. And good timing.”

“I’ll own the instincts, maybe, but the timing was all Steve,” Bruce says, and looks down at Steve fondly where he’s sleeping face first in his pillow. “If he hadn’t brought it up to begin with, I wouldn’t have thought to do anything about it.”

“Yeah, you both get some of the credit, but the fact remains, if you hadn’t done what you did, there’s a good chance that Steve would have fallen apart on the cross yesterday. So take the compliment,” Clint says.

“Yes, Clint,” Bruce says, smiling a little.

“You’re only this much of a smartass right now because you know Tony won’t let me spank your ass for it. You won’t always be safe due to caning related shenanigans,” Clint says, shaking a finger gently in Bruce’s face.

“Shenanigans,” Bruce says and snorts a little with laughter. “Trust me, caning is never connected with shenanigans of any sort.”

“Laugh it up,” Clint sing-songs. “You won’t always be to sore for me to bend you over my knee.”

“Yes, Clint,” Bruce agrees, still smiling.

“Don’t bait him,” Tony tells Bruce, but he’s smiling, Bruce can hear it in his voice. “Or I really will let him turn you over his knee just as soon as you’re healed up enough to take it.”

Bruce thinks this isn’t much of a threat, but says, “Okay, Tony,” anyway, because there’s no point in letting either of them know how appealing the idea of being turned over anyone’s knee is as long as he’s still this sore from the caning. Once Bruce has healed up, he can either ask for, or endeavor to earn himself, a bare handed spanking. Tony kisses Bruce behind the ear again, and it still makes Bruce shiver. He can still feel Tony’s cock brushing against his ass, and he wants to ask again if he can do something about that, but he’s already been told it’s basically none of his concern until Tony tells him otherwise, so he doesn’t. He does snuggle back a little against the front of Tony’s body, because it hurts, but Bruce can’t really afford to let it stop hurting at any point today, or else he’ll end up with it hurting as badly as it had when he’d awakened this morning. It’s like a fire that needs constant tending, even when the tending of it is a little painful, because not to tend it invites the opportunity for it to escape his control.

“I’d say we should get up, but I don’t want Steve waking up in here alone after that,” Tony says, but his voice sounds lazy, as though he thinks they probably should get up, but can’t think of any real reason to actually get out of bed.

“I still need a shower. Now I especially need a shower, Tony,” Bruce says, though he won’t insist if Tony wants him to wait. He is just realizing that he’d sweated while he’d fucked Steve, and that he hasn’t showered yet today at all, so he probably ought to shower. “I got oil all over the clean sheets,” Bruce says, frowning a little down at a long line of oil he can see running down the sheet in front of him. It must be someplace that he’d laid on his side before.

“We might as well sleep in them until I stop having to oil you two or three times a day,” Tony says, and waves the hand that had been slung over Bruce’s hip. “A little oil from your back certainly isn’t the worst thing these sheets probably already have on them.”

Bruce thinks that first Clint and then Steve had come on the bed at some point, so Tony is probably right.

“And anyway, you smell good,” Tony says, nuzzling at the back of Bruce’s neck. “Like sweat and sex and hot blood under skin.” Tony dips his head down and licks along the very top of the line of bruises across Bruce’s shoulders, and Bruce shudders at Tony’s hot tongue against that tender skin, and then the cool air against it after Tony has stopped licking him.

“Can you still feel the welts on his back?” Clint asks.

“No, not exactly,” Tony says. “The welts have all gone down, mostly just leaving bruises, but there are places where his skin is still just lightly abraded that you can just barely feel with your tongue or your fingertips.”

“Can I?” Clint asks, looking at Bruce, and then looking past him at Tony.

Tony tips Bruce forward onto his belly without consulting Bruce at all, and lightly traces arcane patterns across his back. It actually hardly hurts at all, his touch is so light. “Here,” Tony says, “and here. Then diagonally here.” Clint’s fingertips are just as light as they trace lines across Bruce’s back, and Bruce starts to shiver a little at the feel of their hands on his body, not in pain or even really in pleasure, but just in reaction to their hands. “You can feel it a little more across his ass,” Tony murmurs. “Here, and here, and still a little bit here.” Their fingertips slip along the skin of his ass and Bruce shivers hard enough to draw their attention. “Does that hurt, Bruce?” Tony asks.

“No, Tony,” Bruce says. “It doesn’t hurt or feel good, exactly. It’s just you touching me. I can’t help reacting to either or both of you touching me.”

“Is he always that honest?” Clint asks, clearly talking to Tony.

“Yes,” Tony says. “It makes self control somewhat problematic at times.” His tone is very dry.

“I’ll bet,” Clint says, but his tone isn’t dry. He sounds envious.

“I’d let you fuck him if I didn’t think it would really hurt him,” Tony says, sounding sympathetic. “More than he would like I mean. More than is good for him, today.”

“I could probably take it,” Bruce admits softly. “If you were careful.”

“We’re back to you feeling guilty about how many orgasms we’ve had, aren’t we?” Tony asks, sounding amused.

Bruce sighs out a long breath. “I can’t help it, Tony. I feel that you’re hard, and that you have been for at least an hour now, and I’m supposed to make sure you get what you need.”

“If I really needed it, you’d be on your knees right now,” Tony tells him, and curls a hand around the back of Bruce’s neck and shakes him a little. “Don’t think for a moment that I won’t let you know if I really need it, Bruce. Fucking you is not my only option for getting my rocks off, and while you’re right that you’re supposed to make sure I get what I need, it’s not your job to tell me when I need something. Do I need to make myself any clearer on this subject?” Tony’s voice is a little hard and a lot demanding now.

“No, sir,” Bruce says helplessly, because he can’t say anything else, and because Tony is right. It’s not Bruce’s place to tell Tony what he needs. Tony rolls him over, all the way over onto his back this time, and Bruce sucks in a huge, gasping breath of pain at the pressure and the drag of the sheets against his tender skin, and he can feel how wide his eyes are, can feel them already prickling with pain tears, and then Tony rolls him back over onto his side, and Bruce shudders out the breath he’d taken, shocked and relieved.

Tony slides down behind him again. “You can’t even lie down on your back yet, Bruce,” Tony says. “You’re in no shape to take a cock in your ass, no matter how much you might want to, for whatever reason you want to do it. At the very least, I’d want to get with Coulson and see if it can be managed without doing you permanent harm. If you can lie down on your back tomorrow, we’ll revisit the issue. I’ll even invite Clint over if I decide you can take it. But not today.”

“Yes, Tony,” Bruce says in a small, breathless voice, and Tony presses his lips to the back of Bruce’s neck, and then behind his ear, and then against the angle of his jaw. 

“You don’t need to be able to do everything all the time, Bruce,” he says gently. “No one but you expects you to.”

“I’m sorry, Tony. I’m sorry, Clint,” Bruce says, and he genuinely is.

Clint slides his fingers into Bruce’s hair and pushes it back from his brow. His smile is gentle and genuine. “No reason to be sorry. Just believe us when we tell you we don’t need anything from you right at the moment. Just lie back and let your subspace ease your mind.”

Bruce silently shifts back against Tony’s body and curls his arms in close to his chest, hugging himself.

Tony sighs. “Bruce,” he murmurs gently. “Relax. Think about how it felt to fuck Steve. Think about how it felt to have your cock inside him, how tight he was, and how hot. Think about how hard you gave it to him. I’m not sure I would have believed you had it in you. Next time you fuck someone, it’s definitely going to be me.” He breathes that sentence directly into Bruce’s ear, and Bruce shivers and feels himself relaxing. “I wonder if you could fuck me that hard. I wonder if you could bring yourself to do it if you knew I wanted it. Steve told you what he wanted, and you gave it to him. Do you think you could do the same for me?”

“I… yes, I think so, Tony,” Bruce whispers. “If you wanted it like that.”

“I will,” Tony tells him, in a low and lulling voice. “If not the first time, then the time after that. It sounded like it was good, Bruce. Steve was begging to come for two or three minutes before you even realized that’s what he was doing.” Tony laughs softly. “You’re not used to being the one someone begs for that.”

“No,” Bruce sighs. “He did it when I spanked him, too, but I didn’t understand what he was asking until he actually said the whole thing, didn’t understand that he thought he would have to ask me. But hearing him… it was good. A little unnerving, but good.”

“Steve will always ask,” Tony tells him. “It’s how Coulson and I both operate with him; he doesn’t know any other way to let go. He has to be told he can let go so that he is aware every second that he’s not in control. He needs that. Steve will have to learn how to anticipate Coulson’s needs, when he gets to where he doesn’t need such rigid control. You already do that. You already sense what I want. But you still don’t control what I give you, Bruce. You have to be willing to believe me when I tell you I don’t need anything, just as willing as you are to do the things I do need from you. I have a hard on because I watched you and Clint and Steve together, and then I watched you fuck Steve like you’ve been starving for him for your entire life. I don’t need you to do anything about that. Okay?”

“Okay, Tony,” Bruce says, and he’s relaxed again, he believes Tony and his body has gone loose and his mind is tangled up in Tony’s words, but not in a bad way. Not in a confusing way. He imagines fucking Tony like he had fucked Steve and trembles a little at the idea of it. It would feel wrong if Tony’s voice hadn’t been so full of want at the thought of it, and Bruce doesn’t doubt Tony’s want.

“Do you have to talk him down often?” Clint asks.

“No, this is the first time. He’s normally much more willing to believe I mean exactly what I say. I think this time it’s just that he feels that he should be able to give more. This is the longest I’ve gone without fucking him since I collared him. I didn’t fuck him yesterday after the caning, either. I probably should have expected something like this,” Tony says.

“It can’t help that there are two of us he’s trying to figure out how to please,” Clint says. “I can scram if you think I’m making it worse.”

“I don’t think so,” Tony says, and Bruce sighs a little in relief. He doesn’t want to chase Clint away. “I think he is just needy enough right now that he can’t help but project that onto everyone. I’ve never met anyone so skin hungry, Clint.” Tony’s voice is full of a quiet kind of anguish. “He’ll be alright. He just needs a little time to settle. The sooner the rest of the team can put their hands on him at will, the better.”

“Natasha will be easy, if he’s comfortable enough with her to let you invite her to come to bed with you. Thor will be harder. He doesn’t like to interfere with anyone he sees as being in a relationship. He won’t want to hurt Bruce, so you can’t appeal to the sadist in him. Thor is the least sadistic of all of us, except for maybe Steve and Bruce himself.”

“I actually have an idea about Thor,” Tony says, and strokes a hand through Bruce’s hair lightly. “He responded really well to Steve holding him down. I’m pretty sure I can convince Thor to act as sentient bondage for us.”

Clint laughs. “I’m sure you’re right. It would let him indulge his voyeurism from up close and personal.” This time Clint reaches out and slips a hand into Bruce’s hair, brushing it back from his brow. Bruce wonders distantly, but without much concern, how unruly his hair really is right now. After fucking Steve, it’s hard to say. 

He shifts against Tony, which brings his back and ass up to a dull ache, but he still doesn’t want to chance stiffening up again. Also, the ache is good. Not good in the same way that it had been when he was working those muscles to fuck Steve, but still, pretty good. Good enough that just thinking about the ache in conjunction with Steve makes his cock start to fill.

“I’m not sure how he’ll respond to a female dominant,” Tony says. “We haven’t talked about it.”

“But Nat is usually just as happy to go with straight sex as she is to dominate. She doesn’t bottom at all, but she doesn’t necessarily feel like she has to top, either,” Clint muses thoughtfully. After several long seconds, he says, “Is he asleep?”

And Bruce realizes with a start that he had closed his eyes at some point, and he isn’t entirely sure when. “No, I’m awake,” he says.

“Do you know if you’d be interested in Nat topping you?” Clint asks.

Bruce thinks about it. “I’ve never had a woman dominant, but I’ve been with women. I wouldn’t entirely rule it out. Tony would have to be there.”

“Tony’s presence is a given,” Clint says, as if it isn’t even a question.

“Why are we in such a hurry to get me into bed with the rest of the team?” Bruce asks, frowning a little, because he isn’t sure if they’d said and he’d missed it while he’d been thinking, or if they hadn’t said at all.

Clint huffs out a brief sigh. “I guess we aren’t really,” he says finally. “You’ll get to them when you’re comfortable getting to them. I just think that the more of us you can touch, the better off you are going to be.”

“I agree with Clint,” Tony says. “The sooner everyone is allowed to touch you, the more completely you’ll settle down and actually start letting people touch you.”

“I’m not feeling neglected,” Bruce says. “And I’ve managed more in the last few days than I ever suspected even for a second that I would manage this fast, even after I accepted your collar, Tony. Mostly because you know how to ease me into the right kinds of situations.”

“I didn’t have anything to do with Coulson, really,” Tony says.

“You had everything to do with Phil,” Bruce objects. “He asked _you_ if you wanted to learn how to cane a sub. You decided that the sub he caned to teach you should be me. It was supposed to be Thor. I’m glad you decided to do it that way, I would have been so jealous if Thor had gotten caned instead of me, but it was your decision.”

“Okay, Bruce,” Tony says, and Bruce can tell from his voice that he’s smiling again. “I’ll take responsibility for Coulson, too. I just want you to have all the options available to you if you start feeling overwhelmed,” Tony soothes. “Just so that you can go to anyone and get that overwhelmed feeling to go away. It doesn’t have to be done in a huge hurry, not really. I just want you to have it, as a kind of safety net.” He laughs. “And maybe I’m just a touch over-eager, as every time you’ve had the chance to spend any one on one time with any of them, you’ve been able to add them to the list of people that feel steady to you.”

Bruce blushes a little at that, but can’t deny it. He has been ridiculously easy to reassure, once he spends just a little bit of his energy on accepting the people who touch him, who Tony lets touch him. “It hasn’t turned out to be as hard as I thought it would be,” he says a little weakly.

“That’s a good thing,” Clint says softly, and brushes his hand through Bruce’s hair again. “It’s a good thing to be able to get what you need from people once you get to spend a little time with them.”

“It was just such a huge thing, in my mind,” Bruce says, eyes prickling a little as he tries to explain. “In my mind, it all seemed like it was going to be so hard, and it just hasn’t been. I think I’m waiting for it to get harder, like I’ve somehow gotten lucky with all of the rest of you so far.”

“You haven’t gotten lucky,” Tony says, and kisses the edge of his jaw again. “You’ve been open and giving of yourself, and you’ve been able to put aside your fear and accept them when they spend just a little bit of time proving that they are dependable. That’s strength, Bruce. You’ve been strong, not lucky.”

“Oh,” Bruce says, feeling a little stunned at Tony’s explanation, but not because he doesn’t believe him. Just because he hadn’t tried to think about it like that before, and it makes so much sense when Tony says it. He feels himself flushing again, this time with pleasure. “Oh,” he says again, because it’s all he can think of to say.

Tony laughs softly, and kisses the hinge of his jaw again. Clint’s expression is soft, too, soft and fond. “It’s easy to be steady for you, because we all already want to be, Bruce,” he says. “You aren’t asking us for anything we don’t all want to give you already. We just need to know how you want us to give it to you. I don’t know, if we’d known how much you wanted it, needed it, maybe we would have fucked it up in our rush to give it to you before Tony collared you. Maybe we would have overwhelmed you. But I’m glad it’s happening now, however it is that it’s happening. We were worried about losing you completely.”

“I’m sorry,” Bruce says. “I didn’t mean to make you worry.”

“It’s okay,” Clint says. “That’s not your fault. That’s just the way your life has played out up until this point. But if it matters to you at all, Bruce, if it helps you make up your mind at all, I _already know_ that Natasha and Thor are steady in the way you need them to be. I already know that they want to be that way for you. Until they get the chance to prove it to you, maybe that doesn’t mean much, but just in case it does, I feel like I should tell you. I’m already sure of what they feel for you, what they’d be willing to do to keep you with us, and it’s the same thing I would do. Whatever it takes.”

“It’s not that I don’t believe you,” Bruce says, meeting Clint’s gaze so that he can see that Bruce is telling the truth. “I believe that in my head, I believed it already about all of you. It’s just the rest of me that needs to be convinced. Not even my heart, or at least, not anymore. Not after seeing them seeing me, after the things they have seen happen. It’s something lower than that, something deeper. I don’t want to call it my gut, but I don’t have a better word. I need to be sure in all three of those ways before I really feel sure.” Bruce shakes his head. “I wish I knew how to just take your word for it, Clint. I really do.”

“You’ve been taking my word for it,” Tony says quietly. “You’ve been taking my word for it enough to let each of them get close enough to you to prove it to you, and that’s good enough, Bruce. You aren’t disappointing me, or anyone else. You’ve been good, you’ve been strong. I’m proud of you, that you’ve managed to become so comfortable with so many of them so quickly. It’s just a matter of time with the rest,” Tony says, like he certain of it. “Don’t worry about it. Just be willing to try when the opportunity arises, which you’ve already been doing. Just keep doing what you’ve been doing already.”

“I can do that,” Bruce says, flushing a little again, but also smiling. It feels like a weight has been mostly lifted away from him. He’s still carrying a little of it, still a little bowed under with fear, but most of it is gone. He believes them that it’s only a matter of time. And he’s excited for it to happen in a way that he wasn’t quite, before. He’s looking forward to it like something he’s going to get to actually have at some point, and likely sooner rather than later. He’s going to get to sprawl out with them in the penthouse sitting area and watch movies with his head on someone’s lap, and it won’t matter whose. He’s going to get to have what he’s spent so much time watching and wanting and holding himself apart from. He’s going to be able to touch them without expecting to be rebuffed or the fear of being discarded when they find out all of what he is, because they already know. They all know, and they still want him to stay with them.

Bruce shivers a little, and Tony’s arm tightens a little around his waist. 

“Okay?” Tony asks him.

“Just… I think just finally starting to really believe it,” Bruce says, and he can’t keep the wonder out of his voice.

Clint leans forward, bracing one arm in front of Steve’s still limp body to hold himself up, and kisses Bruce, less heat than there had been before, but still with that feeling that Clint is memorizing everything about Bruce’s mouth on his, that he’s concentrating fiercely on Bruce to the exclusion of all else so that he’ll be able to perfectly call up the memory of kissing Bruce again, whenever he wants to. Tony slips his lips across the back of Bruce’s neck and behind his ear and along the line of his jaw while Clint kisses him, and Bruce starts to shiver under the attention, his cock filling a little more, though it will still probably be awhile for him, after coming twice so closely together. At least, it will be awhile without some kind of deliberate attention being paid to his cock. It’s hard to say if one of them actually tries to get him hard if he’d be able to respond. He thinks it’s likely he could, but unlikely that they’ll try.

Clint pulls back slowly, brushing his lips softly across Bruce’s a couple of times at the end of the kiss, and settles back down behind Steve. Tony doesn’t stop sliding his lips along every bit of Bruce he can easily reach for another couple of minutes, but he does eventually stop, though Bruce doesn’t stop shivering from it immediately.

“Okay,” Tony says. “We should definitely get up now. Much more lounging in bed, and I’m likely to curl up next to Steve and go to sleep. Jarvis, time?”

“It is 12:23, sir,” Jarvis says promptly.

“I need more coffee,” Tony says. “And Steve is going to have to eat again soonish. Why don’t I order pizza so we don’t have to worry about food preparation, and we can move this party outside the bedroom. Maybe watch a movie.”

Clint slips a hand along Steve’s shoulder, just caressing for a long moment, and then he shakes Steve gently until Steve’s head comes up off the pillow. His hair is a mess and he has wrinkles from the pillowcase creased into one cheek, but he blinks at them more or less alertly. “Did I fall asleep?” he asks, sounding a little astonished.

“You did,” Tony says, laughter dancing in his voice. “Almost as soon as you were horizontal after Bruce fucked you. You were out like a light.”

Steve shakes his head a little, clearly trying to get the hair out of his face, and then gives up and sits up. He winces a little in discomfort as his weight comes to rest on his ass, but he ignores it, raking his hands through his hair to get it in some kind of order. 

“We thought we’d order pizza and maybe watch a movie,” Clint says, and strokes a few strands of hair down that are sticking up at the back of Steve’s head. Steve’s stomach growls loudly, and Clint laughs. Steve smiles faintly, cheeks going a little pink, but it’s Bruce he looks at.

“I’m sorry I fell asleep,” he says. “I didn’t mean to. It was good, and then when it was over I just felt so relaxed.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Bruce says. “Falling asleep after good sex is not an insult. Clearly I did something right.”

A smile flickers at the corners of Steve’s mouth and he blushes, but he says, “You did everything right.” He shifts a little and winces again. “Very right,” he expands, his blush deepening, and Bruce feels his cheeks heating in response.

“As cute as the two of you are while you show each other your subby underbellies, this is doing nothing to get us all out of bed,” Tony says. “Bruce, do you still want a shower?”

“Uh, yes, yeah,” Bruce says.

“I think I need one, too,” Steve says. “Otherwise I’m going to be sticky soon.”

“I have to agree with them,” Clint says. 

“You can supervise them, then,” Tony says. “I’ll call for pizza and figure out what movie we might want to watch. Bruce, how does your back feel? Are you going to need to have it oiled again after you get out of the shower?”

“I’m not sure, Tony,” Bruce answers truthfully. “I’ve never taken it this hard before. Normally I’d say I wouldn’t, but I’m outside of my realm of experience.”

“I’ll call Phil and ask him before I join them in the shower,” Clint says. “If he needs it again, I can probably manage it.”

“I know how, too,” Steve says. “Natasha taught me.”

“As much as I appreciate all the volunteering, if he needs oiling again, I’ll do it myself,” Tony says firmly. He sits up, and works a hand under Bruce’s arm to help Bruce get up to his knees as well. “The two of you get in the shower,” Tony directs. “Clint, call Coulson, just in case. I want to give Bruce every advantage I can toward healing up. I’m going to drink at least two cups of coffee and get dressed so someone can accept the pizza delivery. Jarvis, call in pizza order bravo five.”

“Yes, sir,” Jarvis says.

Bruce blinks at Tony. “You gave our pizza orders code names?” he asks, trying not to smile.

Tony looks at him flatly. “It was easier to make a chart of what everyone liked and plug it into a spreadsheet than it was to ask everyone what they wanted on their pizza every time.”

“Of course, Tony,” Bruce says, still struggling not to smile.

“He’s got another set of codes for Indian and two for Chinese,” Steve says, not even trying to suppress his grin. “The ones for Chinese are different depending on where we order from.”

“Shut it,” Tony orders Steve, but he leans forward and kisses Steve brusquely, and then swats him on the ass. “Get into the shower.”

Steve and Bruce go, and are joined by Clint just as Bruce is getting ready to wash his hair. Bruce looks a question at Clint, and Clint shrugs. “Phil says if there is any doubt, then always oil it again.”

Bruce isn’t that surprised, and might, after experiencing the spray of hot water across his back and ass, have asked Tony to oil it again anyway after the shower. Surprisingly, his thighs hurt the most under the spray, though they had taken a distant third in pain rankings while they’d been in bed. Even so, Bruce keeps his front to the spray as much as he can, and only turns his back to it to get his hair wet and then get the shampoo rinsed out of it. And even with that little contact with the water directly, Bruce is trembling a little with pain by the time he’s clean enough to escape the shower. Steve and Clint are still showering when Bruce lets himself out, and then has to explore the cabinets in the bathroom to find a towel, as the ones he knows how to locate are actually in the cupboards above the shower itself. He finally goes into the linen closet and finds one, and has to dry his front quickly, and then just pat as gently as he can at his back and ass, which is made harder by the fact that he can’t reach either very well. He is nearly in tears, more of frustration than pain, although it is some pain, when Tony comes into the linen closet and takes the towel out of his hands and gently blots at Bruce’s back, ass, and thighs.

“I know you want to ride out as much of this pain as you can, Bruce,” Tony says when he sets the towel aside. “I know it’s good for you, even when it’s not entirely good, if you get what I mean. But you could at least take a couple of aspirin for the worst of it.” As Tony says it, he is reaching for fresh towels and laying them across the table at chest and hip level.

Bruce shakes his head slightly in negation, and Tony nods, not looking surprised in the least. “Up you get then,” he says, and turns toward the bottles of scented oil. Bruce gets up, and Tony flips open a cap and drizzles oil directly onto Bruce’s back. This massage doesn’t hurt nearly as much as the one this morning had, and after only a couple of minutes, Bruce is arching up into Tony’s hands and pressing his hips down against the surface of the massage table hard enough for the nap of the towel to cause his still raw cock to sting and burn a little. Tony doesn’t have to go at him quite so hard or quite so long before Bruce is moaning a little and rocking his hips despite his raw cock, and Bruce isn’t really ready for it to be over even though he knows well enough that it’s as good as it’s really going to get when Tony sets the bottle of oil aside and picks up Bruce’s discarded towel to wipe the oil off of his hands. “Better?” Tony asks.

“Yes, thank you,” Bruce says, and eases himself off of the massage table onto his feet, his cock once again fully erect and jutting out in front of him.

“Yes, I can see that,” Tony says, dropping his gaze to Bruce’s cock and sounding amused. “Are you okay with pizza and a movie, Bruce? If you need some time, you can eat and go back into the bedroom. Maybe sleep a little.”

“No, actually, pizza and a movie sounds pretty great,” Bruce says. “It’s one of those things I want to be able to do. Sit with everyone through a movie and rest my head against someone’s knee or on someone else’s thigh. It was one of the first things I had to resist.” He isn’t sure if he’s making much sense, but Tony only nods. 

“Let’s grab the bottles of juice that are sitting on the bedside table before we leave the bedroom,” Tony says. “I know that juice I got you has to stay refrigerated.”

He sounds faintly concerned about it, not quite worried, but as though he’d made a mental note to remind himself not to leave Bruce’s juice out, and Bruce smiles, his chest feeling achy and a little tight.

“You’re sure about the aspirin?” Tony asks.

“It’s much better now, Tony,” Bruce says, and Tony smiles a little and nods, and leads them both out of the bathroom. 

“Just stay up, we’re going straight through,” Tony says as Bruce starts to drop automatically to his knees, and Bruce stays up and lets Tony pile his arms full of half-empty, full, and totally empty juice and water bottles before he leads Bruce out into the kitchen. Tony helps sort the empty bottles into the recycling bin, and Bruce puts the rest of the bottles back in the fridge. 

Bruce can smell the pizza, and is surprisingly hungry, although maybe it’s not that much of a surprise, considering all that had gone on in the bedroom. He isn’t a huge fan of pizza, but it smells heavenly, and Tony seems to see it on his face, as he grabs a plate out of the cupboard and hands it to Bruce. “Veggie pizza on the top,” he says, and then apparently can’t keep himself from making a disgusted face.

Bruce smiles at it, but helps himself to the steaming veggie covered pizza on the top of the stack. There are five boxes of pizza, only one covered in vegetables for Bruce. Steve will probably clear two of them all by himself, and that leaves a pizza apiece for Tony and Clint. They’ll probably have leftovers, but not as much as one would expect, dividing five pizzas into four people.

“I picked out the new Star Trek,” Tony says, as he gets a plate of his own and moves Bruce’s veggie pizza aside to get to one covered in meat. “We had six fights during its opening run, and I don’t think any of us got a chance to go see it in the theatre. Not that the seven of us can really manage to catch much in the theatres. At least not all together.” Tony’s lips twist into a frown. “Movie theatres used to be a place I could go and pretty much be sure I wouldn’t be recognized, before Iron Man.” He sighs, and then smiles. “The movie isn’t actually out yet on DVD. I made a call.”

Bruce smirks around the mouthful of pizza he’s chewing. He hasn’t met very many extremely rich people, or at least, he hasn’t known very many of them on a personal level, but he’s pretty sure Tony has more fun with his money than most of the rest of them do put together. Bruce kind of feels like Tony ought to get to have fun with his money. He’s earned every bit of it, and is a superhero on top of that.

The elevator dings, and Tony glances around in surprise. A couple of seconds later it opens, and Natasha and Phil both walk out of it, their heads tipped together over a file they are both looking at. They pause when they see Bruce standing there nakedly eating pizza, but they don’t stare. They actually seem more interested in Tony at the moment.

“Can SHIELD borrow your satellite network to track some odd troop movements that we think might be Hydra, but that we can’t get anything but spotty coverage on through the usual channels?” Phil asks.

“Sure,” Tony says easily. “Jarvis, terminal,” Tony says, and against the back wall of the penthouse a holographic terminal springs to life. “Give Agent Coulson access to all our eyes in the sky, restricted to Agent Coulson only, and allow him to encrypt data and send it to SHIELD headquarters at his convenience.”

“Shall I place any temporary modifiers on Agent Coulson’s access, sir?” Jarvis asks.

Tony throws a glance at Phil and then shrugs. “No,” he says. “Agent Coulson has permanent access to our eyes from this point on. He has full authorization to use the data as he sees fit.”

Phil looks a little surprised, and then pleased. Natasha is smiling as well. Phil goes to the terminal and begins to feed Jarvis coordinates, and images blossom into existence, just hanging in the air. Phil leans in, studying the images. “Can you magnify the second and third sets of coordinates, Jarvis?” Phil asks.

“The second, yes, the third is almost at the limit of our range. I can clarify the image with advanced A.I. speculative programs, but I cannot actually magnify the image.”

“Do it,” Phil says, and studies the images again for several long moments, attention lingering on the third image. “How are you filling in the blanks on this one?” he asks, and then waves a hand. “No, never mind, I doubt I’d understand the details anyway. Encrypt both of those images and send them to Colonel Fury’s terminal at SHIELD headquarters.”

“Done,” Jarvis says almost at once. “Is there any other way in which I may assist you, Agent Coulson?”

“No, Jarvis, that’s all I need. Thank you.”

Jarvis powers down the holographic terminal at the same time as he says, “You’re most welcome, Agent Coulson.”

Coulson turns away from what looks now like a plain wall with a plain glass table set up against it, leaving the file folder on top of the glass of the table, and walks immediately over to Bruce.

“Did you find what you were looking for?” Tony asks, smiling a little as he watches Phil circle around Bruce and study his back. 

“What? Oh, yes. Hydra is definitely moving in the jungles of South America. We don’t know why, or where they are going, but it’s definitely them, and that was what we needed to know. We should be able to track them with the equipment we have available to us now that we know for sure that it’s them,” Phil says, almost indifferently. “Bruce, I’m going to touch your back.”

“Yes, sir,” Bruce agrees, and Natasha reaches out and takes the plate of pizza out of Bruce’s hands, as though she has more of an idea than Bruce does of what that means.

Phil doesn’t just touch his back. He spreads his hands across the tops of his shoulders, fingers splayed wide, and drags his palms and fingers all the way down his back. Bruce sucks in a harsh breath, and stands as still as he can, his back abruptly blazing with pain, and his cock jerking between his thighs. Phil stops at the small of Bruce’s back and asks, almost politely, his voice neutral and pleasant, “And your ass, too?”

“Yes, sir,” Bruce agrees at once, and Phil cups the cheeks of Bruce’s ass in both hands, squeezing them, but he’s a little more gentle with his ass than he had been with Bruce’s back. “Thighs, too, if you want to,” Bruce breathes out, anticipating the question, and Phil’s hands squeeze his ass cheeks gently again, and then he goes down to one knee and runs his hands down the backs of Bruce’s thighs. Bruce groans and goes to his toes as the pain sizzles across the welts across the backs of his thighs, but it feels amazing. Phil knows exactly how to touch them, his hands capable and knowledgeable, so that it’s just on the good side of pain, balanced right on the edge of too much without going over.

“Have you fucked him?” Phil asks Tony, who has circled around to stand beside Phil, and Bruce can’t see his face.

“No,” Tony says simply. “He’s hurting enough that I was worried that it wouldn’t be safe.”

“You’d have to be very careful,” Phil says, and Bruce’s cock jumps a little at the idea that he might get fucked today after all. “On the cross would be best, so that you can control the amount of skin contact and pressure.”

“I can’t fuck him on the cross,” Tony says, sounding a little defeated. “He’s too tall for me. Given a couple of days, I can make some modifications, but as it is, it will have to wait.”

Phil is silent for several seconds, and Bruce hears him climb to his feet. “Would it be presumptuous to ask if I might have the opportunity?” he asks, his voice bland and empty. Bruce isn’t sure if he’s talking to him or to Tony, and says nothing.

“I’m fine with it if he is,” Tony says, and lays a gentle hand on Bruce’s shoulder. “No pressure if you aren’t ready, Bruce.”

“No pressure at all,” Phil agrees at once, his voice soft and serious.

“I… I would. Yes, I would love to have you fuck me, sir,” Bruce stammers out inelegantly, and Tony squeezes Bruce’s shoulder.

“Clint and Steve should be coming out of the shower soon,” Tony says. “Bruce fucked Steve earlier.”

“I’m sorry I missed it,” Phil murmurs, and sounds like he means it.

“Me, too,” Natasha says, and sounds like she means it a lot more.

Tony is silent for a moment, and then says, “Jarvis, pull up the penthouse bedroom feed from this morning, and scan forward until I say when.”

The holographic display reappears, with four screens showing different angles of the bedroom, and Bruce watches from the time that the lights had gone up when Tony had come into the room with his coffee, until the four of them, Tony, Bruce, Clint, and Steve, all trail into the bedroom. “When,” Tony says, and the images pause.

“Bruce fucking Steve isn’t all that happened. How much of this do you want to see?” Tony asks, as though only mildly interested in the answer.

“I can’t help but want to know what you managed to do with four men all at once,” Natasha says, thoughtfully. “Can we watch it all. Or at least start at the beginning and skip over any downtime.”

“I’m comfortable letting you watch Bruce and Steve together,” Tony says. “They are both at last nominally my subs, so they’re not likely to object. I’m not sure how Clint would feel about letting you peeping tom what we did with him.”

Clint, from the bedroom door, where he is dressed again in his sweats and is rubbing at his hair with a towel, says, “Coulson couldn’t possibly see me doing anything I would be more embarrassed about than some of the things I’ve done for and with him. Mostly the same with Nat. It’s fine with me. Although I would have liked to have known I was being recorded.”

“The penthouse bedroom is being recorded from four angles any time anyone is inside of it, mostly for my own perverted viewing pleasure, though I had to set up a different camera angle for the caning yesterday,” Tony says. “Though you’re right, I probably should have mentioned it at some point. I just never intended to share the video with anyone, so I’ve never bothered. This time, I felt… No. I wanted to show off Bruce fucking Steve,” Tony says, sounding self-deprecating. “And I didn’t think about everything that happened before that before I invited them to watch. I apologize, Clint.”

“You’re fine,” Clint says, moving further into the room so that he can see the holographic displays also. “Does Steve know?”

“Yes, Steve already knows,” Tony says. “I told him as soon as I started fucking him regularly.” Tony shrugs. “Like I said, I mostly just use the feed for my own perverted pleasure. It didn’t occur to me that I’d be sharing it, so I didn’t think to mention it to the rest of you.”

Steve pads out of the bedroom in his jeans, sees them all standing around the holographic table, and circles around to see what they’re watching. His cheeks heat a little, and he says, “Oh,” but he doesn’t object.

“Okay, Steve?” Phil asks anyway, and Bruce can’t help but approve.

“Yes. I mean, I’ll probably burst into flames at some point from blushing the whole time, but other than that, I don’t really mind,” Steve says a little wryly.

Phil smiles and leans forward to kiss Steve briefly, but thoroughly. “I’d like to see anything you’re willing to show us, then,” Phil says. Natasha just nods.

“Okay. Jarvis, resume feed, normal speed, ambient volume,” Tony says.

“What does ambient volume mean?” Steve asks Bruce.

“It means the volume will be as loud as it would have been in the room if they’d been there. You might want to either make the screens a little bigger or just pick a couple of angles to view from, Tony,” Bruce says. He’s a little amazed at how much this does not bother him. He takes his plate of pizza back from Natasha, who seems to have forgotten she’s holding it until he tugs it out of her hands.

“I will, once we see which angles are the best,” Tony says, and they all watch for several minutes as Bruce climbs up onto the bed with his back to the headboard, and Clint squirms out of his sweats and turns to face Bruce. “Jarvis, magnify cameras A and D, minimize B and C.”

Steve and Clint wander over to the bar to get themselves some pizza before meandering back over to watch. Bruce eats and watches, a little amazed at the video and sound quality, which is stupid really; of course Tony would have designed his own equipment to install, so it being good is perfectly natural. Bruce is interested in watching both his own face, as Clint goes down on him, and in watching Tony’s face as he crops Clint’s ass and back. When Steve moves up behind Clint, Tony tells Jarvis to magnify one of the other cameras and minimize one of the ones that had been playing, but Bruce isn’t sure anyone watching but him and maybe Clint really notices him doing it. 

“Nice,” Natasha hisses softly when Tony is on the display cropping Clint’s back with quick, precise blows while Clint sucks Bruce and Steve fucks Clint.

“Thanks,” Tony and Clint both say, both with the same faint note of smugness in their tones, and Natasha laughs softly.

When that section of the feed is finished and they start in mostly talking for awhile, Tony has Jarvis speed the feed up until he gets to the part where Clint brushes Tony’s hand away from where it’s wrapped loosely around Bruce’s cock, and he lets them watch Clint dominate Bruce, and Bruce can clearly see on his own face his shock and uncertainty. Though there is still more talking than fucking going on, none of them object to watching this part, and Bruce flushes dully throughout it, though no one looks over at him and notices. 

“Pause, Jarvis,” Tony says, once Clint has Steve on his knees with his hands cuffed at the head of the bed. He has Jarvis change cameras again, but before he starts the feed again, he says, “I want you to watch Bruce. I’m actually glad to be doing this, because I want to see his face while Clint was taunting him with Steve, and I was behind him most of the time, but just watch him, because he fought me a little, I don’t think on purpose, but because he couldn’t help himself.” Phil is looking at Tony thoughtfully as Tony talks, and Bruce half expects Phil to turn to look at him, but he doesn’t. He turns back to the displays and Tony says, “Resume, Jarvis,” and because Tony had pointed it out for everyone else, Bruce watches himself too, and sees how wild his eyes are, how he strains against Tony’s arms, and how when Tony finally lets him go, he flings himself onto Steve, managing two halfway careful strokes before Steve goads him into fucking him harder and faster, and Bruce’s face as he fucks Steve on the recording is both frantic and almost empty of thought. It’s a little unsettling to see himself so out of control. It makes Bruce a little uneasy, but when he glances over at Steve to see if it bothers him, Steve’s mouth is a little open and his eyes are almost dazed, like he’s just remembering how it had felt and isn’t worried at all about Bruce’s lack of control. Tony stops the feed and dismisses it after Tony finally talks Bruce into passing Steve off to Clint, and Bruce is relieved. He isn’t sure he wants their conversation afterward to be made quite this public.

“Steve was deep enough into subspace he didn’t really know how to deal with that he fell asleep afterward,” Tony says. “I wasn’t sure what your plans were, as concerns Steve learning to deal with his subspace, so I chose not to interfere.”

Phil looks at Tony, and then over his shoulder at Steve. “I’ll teach him as much as he wants to learn from me,” Phil says. Then, directly to Steve, he says, “You still think of Tony as your dominant right now, don’t you?”

Steve’s eyes go a little uncertain, and he licks his lips. “I’m honestly not sure,” he says simply. “I think of Tony as who to go to when I’m scared or confused, but I’ve been thinking of both of you as dominant to me almost since the first time you took me to bed, Phil. If you’re asking if I want to… to turn my attention more toward you to teach me new things and help me figure out how to handle them, then I do. Tony has Bruce now, and I know you want to be the one to teach me.”

“I do, but Tony will make time for you if you’re not certain you want me to be the one guiding you through this change, Steve,” Phil says, his face mostly bland.

“I do want you to,” Steve says, and gives a tiny little shrug. “I like it when you’re focused on me. I like the way it feels to have you focused on me.”

“Alright, then,” Phil says, smiling faintly. “I’ll take care of you until you tell me otherwise. You don’t have to stop playing with Tony and Bruce. You only have to promise to tell Tony at once if you start feeling scared or bad.”

“I will,” Steve promises steadily.

Phil’s gaze turns to land on Bruce, his expression thoughtful. “You’re mostly not my problem, and I realize these were extenuating circumstances,” he says. “It had been a long time for you, and Clint teased you. But if you ever fight like that for me, you’ll regret it.”

“It wasn’t just that,” Bruce says shakily. “It was everything. It was all the pain making me needy and keeping me off balance, so that I was almost out of control all morning. I didn’t mean to be bad, I just haven’t ever been this hurt before, and I didn’t know how much it was going to erode my self control. I’m not making excuses. I’m just explaining. I didn’t know it was going to be like this.”

Tony says, “He really was out of his mind, Coulson. He tried to explain it to me before we ever left the bedroom, but I didn’t get how desperate he really was. He has never done anything like it before, and I doubt he ever will again. It wasn’t lack of manners; Bruce has been beautifully trained and has almost perfect manners. It was lack of control, and part of that is on me, because he tried to tell me, and I didn’t understand how deeply it went for him.”

Phil looks at Bruce thoughtfully. “It was the worst pain you’ve ever taken?”

“Yes. I have never had the luxury of knowing that someone else would take care of me after it was done. I always had to take care of myself, after, so I always set hard limits. I didn’t set any limits on the caning. I knew Tony would look after me. I just didn’t know how much more it was going to be.” Bruce tries to explain it without being upset, but is a little upset anyway. He doesn’t want Phil to think he’d been deliberately badly behaved.

Phil curls a hand around the back of his neck and pulls Bruce up against his chest. Bruce rests his head against Phil’s shoulder. “Then I should tell you again, I’ve never had better, Bruce. You took it all so beautifully that it didn’t even occur to me that you were taking more than you might know how to deal with in the aftermath. If I had known, I would have coached Tony on what to expect. So don’t worry about it. It wasn’t your fault, and you and Tony will both know next time how to handle it better.”

“Okay,” Bruce breathes against Phil’s collarbone, and he inhales deeply, smelling a faintly spicy hint of cologne and clean skin and soap. He wants to slide his arms up around Phil’s neck and just breathe in the scent of him for a little while, but he isn’t sure he’s allowed to take those kinds of liberties with Phil. But Phil must know at least some of what he wants, because he holds Bruce against his chest by the back of the neck for two or three minutes, at least, and it isn’t until Bruce feels himself stop shaking that he realizes that Phil had just been holding him until he’d managed to settle himself. He doesn’t resist when Phil releases him, and Bruce takes a careful step back.

Phil looks at Steve, then. “Regardless of how you ended up under him, was it as good as you wanted it to be?”

Steve’s expression shifts into an almost exultant smile. “Oh, yeah,” he says. “It was better.”

Tony says, “Has everyone that wants to eat had as much as they want?”

Bruce isn’t sure if he’s still hungry or not. His cock is a long, hard ache between his thighs, which hadn’t been at all relieved at having been pulled into Phil’s body and feeling the strength in his hands and smelling the clean male scent of him. He isn’t sure if the offer of Phil fucking him is still on the table, but if it is, he’ll wait to eat more until afterward. “I might want more later, but not just now,” Bruce says.

“Are we going to get to watch?” Natasha asks, directing the question somewhere between Phil and Tony.

“That’s up to Bruce,” Tony says.

“Watch what?” Steve asks, and Bruce remembers he hadn’t come out of the bedroom yet when Phil had asked.

“Yeah, what are we watching?” Clint wants to know, and Bruce feels his face heat.

“Coulson wants to fuck Bruce on the cross,” Tony says, just tossing it into the middle of the silence like a hand grenade. Bruce almost wants to wince at the silence that follows, and can feel his face burning dully.

“I thought you said that it might not be safe to fuck Bruce today,” Clint says eventually.

“I did,” Tony says. “Coulson thinks otherwise, as long as it’s done carefully. He recommended the cross because it will give more control over how much of him you touch and how hard you touch him. Unfortunately for me, Bruce is just tall enough for the cross not to be an option for me, though I will fix that soonest, so that it’s never a problem again. So Coulson offered his services.”

Natasha laughs a little at that.

Steve, to Bruce’s surprise, turns toward him and says, “You should do it. Phil is… and yesterday on the cross, after, it was even better.”

“I already said yes,” Bruce says, smiling a little at Steve’s obvious enthusiasm. “I haven’t been fucked since the caning. I want it.”

“It’s going to hurt,” Phil says, voice neutral, face bland.

“I know,” Bruce says quietly. “That’s part of why I want it.”

“As long as you’re clear on that,” Phil says.

“I am,” Bruce says, and then adds, “I know you’ve had to be careful of Steve. You don’t have to be careful of me like that.”

Phil doesn’t actually answer, but his eyes gleam.

“So, Bruce, do we get to watch?” Natasha asks. Her eyes are bright and her cheeks are flushed pink, but her voice is gentle, almost cautious.

Bruce turns to face her, considering, but he’s really thinking: _Why the hell not?_ Natasha is the only one of them that hasn’t seen almost all there is to see, not counting what she’d seen on video, and he already feels like he could almost reach out and touch her, and that it would be okay. Partly from what Clint had said earlier, but partly because of the way that Natasha has always given him plenty of room, has always left it up to Bruce to close the distance between them. He sets his pizza plate down on top of the glass of the holo table, and is barely aware of it when Tony picks it up and carries it away. Natasha turns to face him, like she already expects what’s coming, but Bruce isn’t even sure what it is he plans to do before he sinks to his knees on the floor in front of her and rests his head against the taut skin of her belly. She slides her hands into his hair and holds him there, her fingers curled a little into fists, that are both gentle and a little tugging at his scalp. He can feel the muscles in her belly tightening against his cheek even as she curls a little over him and pulls him more tightly against her.

“If I could think of a way to have you both right now, I would,” Bruce says. “Or more like if I could think of a way for you both to have me,” Bruce admits after a long moment. 

Natasha strokes her fingers through his hair. “Next time, when your back is a little more healed, I will ride you until you beg for mercy,” she promises him in a low, sultry voice that arcs straight into the pit of Bruce’s belly. “For right now, it’s enough that you want to, and that you’ll let me watch while Phil has you. Will you let me do that, Bruce?” she asks.

Bruce nods with his face still pressed tight against her belly. “You can watch anything you want,” he tells her, feeling his face heat up, but meaning it.

“I guess I’ll have to rearrange the seating again in the bedroom,” Tony says, sounding amused.

“Not for me,” Natasha says quickly. “I want to watch from the side, so that I can see Phil’s cock shoving into him.” Clint makes a quiet sound of agreement, and Steve just starts to breathe a little harder, but that’s enough of an answer coming from him. 

Tony pauses, as though to digest that, and then just says,” As it suits you. Shall we retire to the bedroom?”

Natasha helps Bruce to his feet, but she holds him by the shoulders and leans in to kiss him, and Bruce doesn’t hesitate to let her. He can feel it already, that willingness to let Natasha have him and hold him in her small hands, that line of trust that he’s all but already given her. Her kisses are light and feathery, just the barest touches of lips along Bruce’s mouth, and then brushed across both of his cheeks. “I’ll give you real kisses when you’re closer to being healed up. Right now Phil is nearly vibrating with his desire to get his hands on you, and I can wait.” She grasps him gently by the shoulders and turns him around to face Phil. 

Phil doesn’t look like he’s vibrating, but all his careful blandness has been lain aside, perhaps on purpose, perhaps because he just can’t hold it steady on his face any longer. The look he gives Bruce is pure avarice, the same kind Bruce had seen on his face that first night he’d come out into the penthouse and let them all touch his newly striped chest and thighs, and Bruce’s belly dips in desire and anticipation. Phil is already loosening the knot on his tie, something Bruce has never actually seen him do in company, and he drags it out from around his neck and leaves it lying draped across one of the arms of a couch. It looks strange there, out of place, but Bruce doesn’t have that much time to think about why. Tony catches him by one elbow and leads Bruce, stumbling back in the direction of the bedroom, stumbling because he can’t seem to watch where he’s going and watch Phil striding along behind him at the same time.

“Jarvis, open drapes fully,” Tony commands as soon as they cross the threshold into the bedroom, and the drapes whirr open with a low motorized sound that Bruce isn’t sure he’d heard the last time. The cross is there, and Tony says, “Polarize glass, mirror central panes,” and the glass of the windows goes dark and smoky except for the two mirrored panes directly in front of the cross. He gives Bruce a rough little forward push, and Bruce’s sore back and ass begin to really hurt again, like there are hooks dragging against his abused skin. Bruce hadn’t had a chance to go to his knees, Tony’s arm on his elbow had kept him upright, and he turns to look into Tony’s face now, a little worried at what he’ll see there. Tony has been rough with him before, but it hadn’t felt like this. But all Tony’s face is showing is a darkish shadow of disappointment and maybe a little envy, and Bruce is pretty sure that Tony isn’t mad at him, really. He just happens to be the easiest target for that disappointment. Tony lets him go when Bruce is standing in front of the cross, and even catches his shoulder and turns him to face Phil, who has already shed his jacket and laid it along the foot of the bed, and is now working on the buttons of his shirt. Clint steps in, perhaps to help or just to hurry things along, but Phil gently pushes him back. He strips off his sleeveless white undershirt, and Bruce gets a look at the well defined musculature of his upper body. He isn’t as broad as either Steve or Clint, but he’s clearly strong and fit, only the scar from Loki’s spear marring the expanse of his skin.

Bruce both wants to wince at it, and wants to run his tongue over it at the same time. His head is a little swimmy at seeing Phil just with his shirt off, and he realizes he’s never seen any of Phil’s body, not really, and watches with expectant avariciousness of his own as Phil leans against the side of the bed to take off his shoes and socks, and then unbuttons and unzips his suit pants. It takes him a few seconds longer to realize that Phil is watching him look, and is smiling faintly, as though pleased by Bruce’s reaction. Phil steps out of his pants, laying them across the foot of the bed as well, and then is standing there in just his boxer briefs, which are black, which Bruce thinks a little wildly must be to match the suit. Then he’s sliding those down his hips as well, and standing naked and easy in the middle of the room, and Bruce is not at all disappointed in the length and shape of his cock. He’d known already, of course, both Tony and Clint had mentioned it, but it’s not the same as seeing it, a deep red, thrusting forth in front of his body in a way that seems to indicate that it means business.

Tony turns him back to face the cross, his hands gentle this time, and says, “Lift up your arms, Bruce,” and Bruce does, and his wrists are immediately enfolded in the metal cuffs at the top of the cross. The chains are a little too high, and Bruce has to go to his toes to for Tony to lower them back down from the way they’d been pulled up to take Steve yesterday. Bruce waits as patiently as he can, but his cock is hard and wanting. Tony goes down on his knees to close the cuffs around Bruce’s ankles. “Still think you can keep your feet?” Tony asks him, and Bruce merely nods, his throat too tight for words. “Still sure you want to do this,” Tony murmurs right at his ear, probably too softly for anyone but Steve to hear, but Bruce merely nods

“Lube?” Phil asks, and there are several seconds of what sound like more than one person searching for it, and then the unmistakable sound of the top of the tube clicking open. He feels Phil close in behind him before he thinks to look up into the mirror, and catches something other than that gleaming avarice on his face. His expression is almost tender. “If you need me to stop, just say, Bruce,” he says quietly. “No need to safe word, just stop will be enough this time. You’re still hurt enough that you may want to stop it even if it still feels good, or at least slow it down. Just tell me what you need.”

Bruce shudders from his head to his toes, reacting at least as much to Phil’s tone as to his words, but he meets Phil’s gaze in the mirror, and nods. “I won’t want you to stop,” Bruce says, his voice trembling and eager, even in his own ears.

“I’m betting that you won’t but if you do, don’t hold back out of some kind of misguided attempt to suffer through it. It’s going to hurt, but it should be at least as much pleasure as pain, and if it’s not, you should stop me.”

Bruce nods his understanding, but knows it would have to be pretty damned bad for Bruce to actually try to stop Phil. The rest of them have drawn close, Clint and Natasha on one side of the cross, and Tony and Steve on the other. Bruce can feel their eyes on him, and the thought of them watching just makes him shudder again and then relax a little, as though just their presence is enough to soothe him.

Phil slides a slick finger up the crack of his ass, and Bruce jumps a little at the coolness of the lube, but before he can even finish the whole motion, Phil is already pushing the finger into Bruce, making his back arch and jolt with electric pain that does the same thing it had done before, sinks right into the pit of his belly to tangle with the desire there and feeds the fire in the cradle between his hipbones. Bruce lets out a small, helpless gasp, his head thrown back, and Phil adjusts the angle of his wrist, and when he presses in this time, the pad of his finger pushes against Bruce’s prostate, which makes his back arch even harder, and brings the first helpless cry to his lips. Bruce can feel his ass tightening around Phil’s finger, not wanting to lose it once it is buried deep inside him, but Phil doesn’t pause to give Bruce time to regroup. He strokes across his prostate six or seven times, lightly, but still bright enough to jerk little sounds out of Bruce’s throat with every stroke, and then Phil is pressing another finger in beside the first, and Bruce’s back and ass wake fully to the pain as he shudders hard at the feeling of being stretched open. Bruce has always had a little bit of a hard time with the preparation, it has always started the unraveling feeling of letting go, but Phil takes him through it masterfully, driving into him faster with two fingers, hard enough to make Bruce tense all over, and then shudder and just give himself over to the mixture of pleasure and pain. The pain of his back and ass are very present, but also feel a little like distant music coming from far away compared to Phil’s long, agile fingers working him open. Bruce jerks a little against the cool metal of the cross and feels the cuffs bite into his forearms with a kind of helpless satisfaction.

There is no getting away from this without crying off, and Bruce is almost sure he won’t do that. When Phil presses a third finger into him, Bruce shouts a little and tenses all over, and the pain of his back and ass seem to wash down the back of his body like a waterfall, not separate from the pleasure, but an integral part of it, just like it’s supposed to feel. He cries out a little again when Phil pulls his fingers free of Bruce’s body entirely even as the grinding pulse of desire low in his belly cycles up, understanding what is coming next, but first Phil leans forward against his back, pressing the whole front of his body against the soreness of that skin, and catches Bruce’s gaze in the mirror. The bright and somehow deadly look on Phil’s face makes his heart start to pound even harder in his chest, but he just looks back until Phil seems to approve of whatever he sees in Bruce’s face. 

He merely whispers, “Ready?” into the cup of Bruce’s ear.

Bruce says, “Please, sir,” and Phil’s eyes gleam a little more brightly at Bruce’s response, and then Bruce feels the silky head of Coulson’s cock slipping along the crease of his ass until he finds the angle he wants, and there is no build up before he plunges inside, pulling his chest back away from Bruce’s back, but his hips slapping painfully against Bruce’s bruised ass. Bruce lets out a sound like surprise and pleasure and pain all twisted up together into one thing, and he thinks he hears Natasha gasp out a little echo of that sound, but then he is too occupied with Phil’s long cock pressing deeply inside him as his hips slap against Bruce’s bruised ass with each stroke, and he is more surprised than he would have thought possible when Bruce’s balls spasm and his cock jerks, and he comes barely three strokes in, the suddenness of it enough to bow his back with both pain and pleasure. 

“Ah, Bruce,” Phil snarls out, his hips not stopping even for a moment as Bruce’s orgasm thunders through him, the slapping of Phil’s hips against his sore ass just seem to spur the orgasm on, in fact. “Come on my cock, that’s just perfect Bruce, perfect.” Phil pants the words into his ear, and they twist into his guts with the rest of his desire and need, neither of which seem to be much abated by Bruce’s orgasm, as good as it had been. He is still clenching around Phil’s cock, loathe to release the long drag of it every time he pulls back, and his back barely hurts at all compared to the white wash of pain that rushes over him every time Phil’s hips slap up against his aching ass. He feels more than sees Phil reach around him, and looks up into the mirror to see that Phil has wrapped his fingers around the cross bars of the upper arms of the cross, his feet still planted steadily, but his arms flexing as he jerks his body forward into Bruce, each stroke so deep that Bruce can’t keep back his cries, but Phil doesn’t seem to want him to this time, his eyes flutter a little at every sound Bruce makes, and the snapping of his hips across Bruce’s bruised ass are like bright exclamation points that follow each of those deep strokes of pleasure, the pain just offsetting the pleasure, as though dragging it further forward. The short, harsh cries spilling out of Bruce’s mouth twist and morph into one long sound, a high and helpless whine punctuated by grunts every time Phil plunges into him, and Bruce feels it again, Phil’s special brand of magic, that ability to make it so close to too much without crossing over the line. Bruce jerks back into the next stroke of Phil’s cock in his ass, not meaning too, but not quite able to stop it either, and Phil rumbles a low, pleased sound in his ear that does almost as much as the pain and the pleasure to push Bruce upward toward another climax, though he can feel this one coming. It seems to start at the base of his spine and spiral up his back to someplace deep in the back of his brain, building slowly but steadily with every stroke, every slap of Phil’s hips against his sore ass, every soft sound of pleasure or approval that Phil murmurs into his ear. 

He hears Phil say, “Again, Bruce, you can do it again for me,” and his only thought is that he wants to do it again for Phil, knows what Phil is talking about, what Phil craves, and Bruce is going to be able to do it, he’s close to being there again, just teetering on the edge as Phil shoves in deep, twisting his hips so that his skin burns against Bruce’s ass, and Bruce can hear himself almost crying, but distantly, the way he can still hear himself jerking out little pain-pleasure sounds with Phil’s every stroke. Then Phil bites down on the big tendon in Bruce’s neck from behind, the bite by no means gentle, but doing what Phil had meant it to do, pushing him forward just a little bit further until Bruce is jerking back against Phil’s hips and onto his cock and coming again, almost screaming this time. Then Phil’s hands are on Bruce’s hips, holding him still, and he is slamming into Bruce fast and hard, the pain and pleasure one bright sensation that is all knotted together into one thing again, and then Phil presses his whole body forward against the cross, presses himself against the whole back of Bruce’s body, so that his back and his thighs wake up from the distance Phil had been holding them at, and he shoves into Bruce hard, three times, four, and then freezes, still pressed against the whole back of him, his hips jerking just the slightest bit as he spills into Bruce. Bruce gasps at the hot, slick feel of Phil pressed deeply inside him, and Phil stays there for several long moments, not pulling free and not pulling away from Bruce’s sore back and even sorer ass. Bruce drifts for that expanse of seconds or minutes, feeling the ache of his body as something deeply satisfying, the fullness of his ass just as satisfying in some ways.

When Phil does pull back, it’s slowly and carefully, though the sweaty skin of his hips seem to want to stick to the oiled skin of Bruce’s ass. He eases his cock out of Bruce, and then shocks Bruce by going to his knees behind him, his hands as gentle as they really can be as he spreads Bruce’s cheeks and licks hotly along the crack of his ass. Bruce is sore from Phil’s cock, but not so sore that he can’t enjoy Phil’s tongue first getting him wet and then pushing inside him, so that he shivers a little and thinks for a few seconds that his knees really will go out from under him. It doesn’t last long, just long enough for Bruce’s cock to try to harden again, though it’s impossible, but long enough to soothe away most of the burn of Phil’s cock inside his body, if not the pain from his hips slapping against Bruce’s ass. Then Phil tugs at the cuffs from his ankles, and then remembers that they are voice activated and rises to his feet and looks at Tony.

“Unlock,” Tony says at once. Bruce’s arms fall immediately to his sides, just so much dead weight, and he leans heavily against the cross for several seconds, until he feels Phil’s hands close around his hips and pull him back and away.

Bruce sways on his feet, feeling battered and absolutely amazing at the same time, and Phil presses gently atop his shoulders until Bruce sinks to his knees. He almost leans back on his heels, remembers at the last instant why that would be bad, and just kneels where Phil had put him, still swaying just a little. Phil goes down to his knees and kisses Bruce, and Bruce realizes that Clint must have learned at least some of the way that he kisses from Phil, because it’s like that, only more, Phil searching every inch of Bruce’s mouth, every press of his tongue, the very shape of his lips, and when he finally pulls back, Bruce is crying just a little bit again. Phil goes to his feet, his gaze still fixed on Bruce, that gleaming avarice still entirely present in his eyes, as though once could never have been enough for Phil to have his fill of Bruce. Then Tony steps up to him, and Bruce leans forward against his hip gratefully for balance, and for myriad other reasons. Just Tony’s essential presence is enough to draw him back a little into his head, though he doesn’t think his subspace is going to be so quick to retreat this time. He can kind of tell by the way that Tony’s hard on is nearly pressed against his cheek, but he feels no need to do anything about it unless Tony asks him to, and he’s content to wait for Tony to ask before he worries about it. 

“You’ll want to oil at least his ass again,” Phil says. “He took a fairly serious pounding.”

“I saw,” Tony says, his tone a little harsh, laced with lust, Bruce realizes, but further realizes that there isn’t much he can do about that. He’s not sure he’d even be capable of giving a halfway decent blow job in the shape he’s in, though if Tony were to ask, Bruce would try.

Tony doesn’t ask though, just holds Bruce close to his hip by the back of his neck, while Bruce pants through the rest of his exertion and eventually settles into more regular breathing. Bruce can feel them all standing in a circle around him, looking down at him with varying degrees of want and amazement. He can’t bring himself to look back just now. Tony is holding him where he wants Bruce, that’s fine with Bruce.

“You were just lovely, Bruce,” Natasha says warmly, and Bruce feels her fingers toying with his hair for several seconds. He reaches up and catches her hand without thought, and brings it down to his lips to kiss. 

“Thank you,” he says, and sees her glance up at Tony and apparently get some kind of look that makes her think it would be okay, because she drops to her knees in front of Bruce as well, her hands cupping his cheeks gently, as though he were made of the most fragile of porcelain, and she kisses his cheeks and brow first, just brushes of her soft lips along Bruce’s face, and then she leans in as she had before, close enough to make the offer, but not close enough to force it on him. Bruce dips his head and kisses her, a little surprised to find her shorter than he is down on their knees like this, though she’s shorter than he is standing, too, and he’d known that. But he slips a hand into the silky sleekness of her hair and pulls her into a harder kiss than they’d shared before, at first his lips and tongue pressing against hers, and her just allowing it, as though waiting for him to commit to the kiss, and then she surges forward into it, her mouth hot and sweet, as though she might have been drinking wine, and her tongue slips between his lips, gently at first, and then hard and fast, tongue fucking his mouth without an ounce of gentleness, letting, in her way, her intentions be known, her desires be open to him, and it’s she who pulls away first, her breath quick and light, but it is Bruce that feels the loss of it, especially of the hand in her silky hair, and when he looks into her eyes he sees a vast kind of gentleness there, as well as the desire to have him, to take him over with her need, and he’s comforted by both.

“Natasha,” he breathes helplessly, and she puts her fingertips against his lips. 

“Tomorrow, if you’re healed enough, or the next day, maybe. Or maybe not until Tony is willing to share you. But I want you, Bruce. I want the part of you that is sweet and bends so easily, and I want the part of you that fucked Steve so hard and frantic earlier today. I am not so tied into any one role that I can’t want all of what you have to give.” She kisses her fingertips and presses them against Bruce’s lips. “But I think you’re going to let me show you now, and I wasn’t sure before. I think you feel me, and that you know that I can hold you up when you need holding up and hold you down when you need holding down, and for now that’s enough for me.”

“Natasha,” he says again, when her fingers fall away from his mouth, and if there had been any possibility of getting hard again after Phil and the cross, he would have been hard for her already. “You may have to tell me what to do,” he says, voice still breathy, and she smiles at him.

“That only makes it better, Bruce. That will only make having you sweeter,” she tells him, and he can see it on her face, that she means not just that, but all the rest that she’d said, too, and he leans forward and kisses her cheek lingeringly.

Tony tugs Bruce back up against his thigh again, and Bruce goes willingly enough, feeling essentially light, almost freed from his body, even as that body aches at the use to which it had been put to. He cannot quite imagine how it would be, to be topped by Natasha, but the latent embers of want that still are not completely dormant low in his belly want desperately to find out.

“You all go get some more pizza or something. I’m going to oil Bruce’s ass again. I pirated the new Star Trek movie, but don’t start it without us,” Tony says.

Steve pauses, leaning around Tony a little to kiss Bruce on the cheek, and Clint does almost the same from around the other side of Tony’s body. When they are all gone, Tony grabs him by the upper arms and hauls him to his feet with enough strength that Bruce is a little startled by it. He stares into Bruce’s face, his eyes searching, and then asks, “Are you alright? Where are you sitting?”

“Close to zero,” Bruce admits, not sure if Tony will want to know that Phil had taken him so far down, but unwilling to lie. “I came up a little with Natasha, or I’d still be at zero,” he adds.

“Am I wrong, or are you already sure of her?” Tony asks. “Sex aside, and I understand that the sex helps you, helps to confirm their essential steadiness to you, but you don’t really need it to be sure of Natasha.”

“It’s how careful she’s been with me every time, after, when she’s touched me,” Bruce confirms. “It’s in the way she lets me know that she wants me but won’t insist on having me if you aren’t okay with it.” Bruce shakes his head. “I don’t know why the feeling is so strong with her when it hasn’t been as certain with the others. I just feel it everywhere I need to feel it.” He pauses, and then smiles a little. “I still hope you’ll let me go to bed with her, though, Tony.”

Tony smiles, too, the expression brightening his whole face. “As soon as you’re able to lie down on your back without it being torture. It doesn’t have to even be perfect. If it still hurts you to lie down on your back tomorrow, but it’s bearable, maybe even as early as that. I wouldn’t even make it a condition, but she’ll want to ride you before she does anything else with you. It’s just part of how she begins things with everyone.” He slips a hand around the small of Bruce’s back and leads him again through the bathroom to the massage table. “Hup,” he says, and Bruce climbs cautiously up onto the surface, but his back is not much worse than it had been before; it’s his ass, now, that’s aching almost as much as it had this morning. “I want to fuck you like that,” Tony tells him, just the faintest trace of envy in his voice. “I’ll fix it so that I can. As soon as you’re healed up, I’m going to crop you or maybe try my hand at the cane hard enough to leave your body that needy, just so I can fuck you on the cross. I’ve never missed it before, it hasn’t ever seemed important. But seeing you on it with Coulson.” He doesn’t finish the sentence. He just clicks open a bottle of the massage oil and goes to work on Bruce’s ass.

Bruce moans, tears spilling from his eyes at the drag of Tony’s hands against his skin, but settles after only a few minutes, though his cock isn’t hard enough to push against the top of the massage table now. He still feels a little raw and sore from fucking Steve without really having enough lubricant involved, but it’s mostly that Phil had wrung it all out of him, all he had left to give, and he lies quiet under Tony’s hands as he finishes oiling his ass, until Tony is wiping his hands free of oil again, and watching him thoughtfully.

“Best guess, Bruce, and I won’t be upset either way. But I’ve subbed for Coulson and he’s hurt me and I’ve liked it, but what he gave you… would that be too much for me?” Tony asks.

“I honestly don’t know, Tony,” Bruce says, his cheek still resting on his arms where they’re folded under his head. “I’ve never seen you sub before. I’d like to see it. I think it would be…” he gropes for a word. “A little shattering, I guess, to see you come apart like that.”

Tony nods, face still a little thoughtful. “That can be arranged, too. Maybe you can fuck me right after.” His lips quirk. “If you think you’d like to take me while I was still hurting from it.”

Bruce licks his lips, his imagination providing him with a brief kaleidoscope of images that tumble over one another in his mind. “I would,” he says. “I don’t need it, but I would like it.”

“We’ve got the whole rest of the week, and the only real plans I have for it is to get you feeling about Thor the way you feel about the rest of us. I have an idea about how to do that already, but maybe you need to be a little more healed for it to work.”

“I heard you telling Clint,” Bruce says. “I think it sounds good. Thor is so big, I think it could be… good.” He blushes a little as he says it, and Tony laughs a little.

“Come on back out to the others,” he says, and Bruce slips down off of the table a little more easily than he’s been able to so far today. “You didn’t really eat enough before, and it will be nice to just relax and watch a movie with everyone present being someone you’re mostly comfortable with.”

“Yes,” Bruce agrees, maybe a little more emphatically than he means to, because Tony laughs again, but then his face falls into more serious lines.

“It really has been something you’ve been wanting for a long time, isn’t it? Just to settle in with us and watch a movie without worrying who you end up touching.”

“Yes,” Bruce admits, flushing a little. “It seems like such a small thing, but it was always the simplest thing I saw all of you doing together, and I couldn’t be a part of that.”

“We’ll settle you between Natasha and me,” Tony says seriously. “Natasha has the most comfortable lap, and I’ll rub your feet.”

Desire for those simple pleasures twists behind Bruce’s breastbone, and then blossoms out in a wave of warmth, because he is going to get to have it now.

Tony leads him out of the bathroom and Bruce falls on his knees in the bedroom, luxuriating now a little, in the pull of muscles in his back and ass. Tony pauses halfway through the room, and says, “You’re feeling better now.” It’s not a question. “Is it because of Coulson fucking you, or have you really worked that much pain out of your muscles.”

“Both, I think,” Bruce says. “I’ll know for sure during the movie, if I stiffen up again.” He can’t bring himself to worry about it. “Come on, before someone else claims Natasha’s lap.”

Tony laughs, and leads him out of the bedroom, though he murmurs, “Stay down on your knees through the penthouse if you don’t mind. I want them all to see you crawling for me.”

Bruce doesn’t mind, feels a little thrill at the idea of it actually, and once they make it across the tile and down the stairs into the sitting area, the carpet is just as thick and easy on his knees as the carpet in Tony’s bedroom. Phil is partway dressed again, in just his shirt and suit pants, the shirt only halfway buttoned. He watches Bruce crawl across the penthouse with a great deal of attention, though they all do watch. Bruce feels warm and wanted with their eyes on him.

Natasha is on one end of one of the couches, with Clint folded down at the other end. “Let me have your seat,” Tony orders, and Clint gives him an odd glance, but unfolds himself from that couch to goes and folds himself onto the couch with Steve and Phil already sitting on it. “Can Bruce use your lap for a pillow, Natasha,” Tony asks. “I told him your lap made the best pillow.”

“Of course,” she says, smiling at both of them and shifting around so that she’s sitting in a better position for it. 

“Up, Bruce,” Tony says, and Bruce climbs up onto the middle of the couch and waits for Tony to settle down at the other end before he stretches himself out between the two of them, still deeply enough in his subspace that it doesn’t even feel strange, just new enough to make him happy. Tony pulls Bruce’s feet into his lap, even though Bruce still has to lie on his side to keep from aggravating his back, and Tony says, “Okay, Jarvis, feature presentation time.”

Bruce hardly remembers the movie, honestly. He remembers enough to know it’s better than “Into Darkness” had been, but he’s mostly just basking in the feeling of Natasha’s hands toying with his hair, and Tony carefully and firmly rubbing his feet, as he had promised. He falls asleep sometime near the end, and only realizes it when he hears Tony says, “Okay, Jarvis, shut it down. We’ve lost Bruce.”

“I’m not lost,” Bruce objects groggily. “I was just resting my eyes.” 

Everyone laughs at him, and Natasha fists her hands into his hair and tugs sharply at it, drawing the ghost of a moan out of Bruce’s throat. “Tomorrow, Nat,” Tony says, sounding indulgent. “The next day at the latest. Just depending on what his back can stand up to.”

“That movie hasn’t done a damned thing to settle me down after watching Bruce on the cross,” Clint complains. “And I got plenty of action before you two even got home.”

“No, I agree, and I actually got to be the one to have Bruce on the cross,” Phil says. “Steve, are you still sore from Bruce fucking you.”

“No!” Steve says, a little too quickly, and blushes at his own haste. “I mean. I was for a little while, but it’s mostly passed.”

Natasha strokes her hands through Bruce’s hair. “What about it, Clint?” she asks. “Want to find some privacy.”

“Anything for you,” Clint says, smiling his most roguish smile.

“I’m warning you, I’m feeling a little vicious just now,” she tells him, and her tone is serious, like she really is warning him. 

“As long as you can stay away from the middle of my back where Tony really had at me, I can handle it,” Clint says, voice dropping slightly, but just as serious as hers had been.

“Are we making plans for dinner?” Phil asks.

“No, let’s just all forage for our own,” Tony says. “I want to just spend some time with my submissive.”

“Are you going to…” Steve begins, looking at Phil, and then stopping abruptly, as if suddenly aware that he’s not alone in the room with Phil. He blushes bright red, and Clint’s eyes sparkle with mischief.

“Going to what?” he asks Steve, and gathers himself up onto his knees to loom over Steve a little where he’s sitting beside him on the couch.

“Never mind, Clint,” Phil says. “Steve can tell you about his new hobbies once he figures out which ones of them he really likes.”

“I really like the little paddle,” Steve says, almost a little defiantly, and Phil turns to look at him with sharp eyes. 

“Enough that you want to demonstrate how much you like it in front of everyone here?” Phil asks, tone almost mild.

Steve drops his gaze. “No,” he whispers.

“Then don’t tease,” Phil says, and Steve hangs his head. Phil catches him by the chin and lifts his face up, kissing him lightly. “You might find out that you like being on display,” he says. “It wouldn’t exactly surprise me. But don’t offer what you’re not ready to give yet.”

“Sorry, Phil,” Steve says, and turns to Clint. “Sorry, Clint.”

Clint just laughs. “We’ve all been new before,” he says. “Enough to know what it’s like to find out that your excitement sometimes gets the better of you.” Clint turns to Tony. “Thor should be back almost any time now,” he says. “I don’t know that he’ll come looking for anyone, but I don’t know that he won’t, either.”

Tony nods, but doesn’t look concerned. “Thor hasn’t ever invited himself into my bedroom without a clear offer having been made, and I don’t expect that to change now. What he does with the two of you may be different.”

“We’ll leave some pizza out for him,” Steve says. “That way he at least has something to eat when he flies back. He takes the airline with Jane and Darcy to New Mexico, but he flies back on his own, and he’s alway hungry after.”

Steve gets up and stacks the two pizza boxes that still have pizza in them on the bar, but offers Bruce the veggie pizza. “Thor will eat if it we leave it out, even though he doesn’t really like it.” He smiles a little. “Thor will eat anything.”

“Put it in the fridge if there’s room,” Tony says. “Bruce might get hungry later.” 

Steve nods and rifles around in the refrigerator until he makes enough room to slip the pizza inside. Then he turns to Phil, a little shyly. “I… I’m ready,” he says, sounding though he isn’t entirely sure he is, but he’s willing to give it a try anyway.

“Don’t look so worried,” Phil says, sounding amused. “I promise, I’m not going to do anything to you that you don’t like.”

“I know,” Steve says, staring down at his bare toes for a second. “I’m just a little nervous all of the sudden.”

“It’ll pass, I promise,” Phil says, and stands and takes Steve by the hand. Natasha and Clint get up, too, not holding hands, but with Clint’s eyes heavy-lidded and Natasha’s bright and hard. 

“We probably won’t see you until tomorrow,” Tony says, and they don’t look all that surprised as they file into the elevator.

A moment later, they’re gone, and Bruce wonders a little at what Tony’s plans are now that they’re alone. Tony likely won’t fuck him, not after Phil had done such a thorough job at it, and Bruce still can’t lie down on his back. Still, even after the movie, Bruce can still see that Tony is hard in his jeans, and that has possibilities.

“Come on,” Tony says, and leads the way into the bedroom. He strips down almost as soon as they’re inside, before Bruce even reaches the knee line, and then Tony turns and slings his arms loosely around Bruce’s neck and kisses him. “How are you recovering?” he asks.

“My back, or…?” Bruce asks, unsure of what else Tony might be referring to. 

Tony wraps his hand around Bruce’s cock without even having to bend to do it, and it’s different when Bruce isn’t on his knees. Bruce doesn’t get all the way hard, not all at once, but he starts to fill, and when Tony leans in to kiss him again, harder this time, with more intent behind it, Bruce’s cock responds to that the way it almost always does. He still isn’t completely hard when Tony lets him go and pulls back, but he’s fairly close.

“I have two ideas,” he says. “Either of which are all right with me. A simple sixty-nine, keeping in mind that I won’t be able to take all of you unless you want to give me some lessons before we start, or you could fuck me.”

Bruce’s cock jerks the rest of the way erect, and he stares at Tony, trying to make sure he’d heard him right before he gets too excited.

Tony smiles a little. “Or a mix of both,” he says. “I can get us both a couple of drinks to loosen us up a little, and you can see if you can talk me through taking you into my throat. I’d smoke a bowl with you Bruce, but I don’t happen to have any weed hanging around the tower at the moment. I haven’t got around to asking Pepper yet.”

Bruce’s mouth has gone a little dry. “What do you really want, Tony?” he asks.

“I want you to fuck me before Natasha gets you down and rides you until you think you’re going to lose your mind. She’s got a knack for it. But if you’re too sore for that, that’s okay, Bruce. I know you weren’t exactly gentle with Steve earlier, and if you’re still raw, we don’t have to do that.” Tony’s face is solemn. “We don’t have to do either, truthfully. I can see your subspace still spilling out of your eyes. If you just want to lie down and tell me what it was like to be fucked by Coulson on the cross, we can do that. I just haven’t had you to myself today, and that’s mostly what I wanted.”

Bruce's gaze drifts over to the cross, and he isn’t sure he wants to try to tell Tony what it had been like to be strung up along it and fucked by Phil. Not yet anyway. Not when Tony can’t do the same directly after the telling.

“How do you want it?” Bruce asks. “Slow, like Steve had you the other day, or more like the way I had Steve today.”

Tony’s brow furrows, as if he’s giving the question a great deal of thought. “A kind of mix between the two, I think,” he says finally. “Start out slow, but let it build up however it builds up.” Then he repeats, “You don’t have to, Bruce. It can be hard to fuck your dominant. I’ve had subs that couldn’t do it at all.” He pauses. “And I know you’re still sore all over, from the caning, and just from Coulson fucking you. If you’re just not up to it right now, it doesn’t have to be right now.”

“I think,” Bruce says, and closes his eyes and tries to think how to say what he means. “I think if you can use something in me --” he flushes hard when he says it, but fights through the humiliation, “and then can tell me exactly what you want while we do it, I can do it. I might be able to do a little better, might not need the extra help if we wait for another time, but I am still pretty deeply in subspace, Tony. I think I’ll need that little extra kick of… of humiliation, and then for you to tell me what you want from me.”

“Get on your knees on the bed,” Tony says at once, his eyes going bright and hard.

Bruce feels a mercifully brief desire to change his mind, and then it passes, and he climbs up onto the bed, facing away from Tony, his legs spread because he knows what, in general at least, Tony is going to do to him. He hears Tony pull open the door of the kink closet, bumping things around inside it for several long seconds, and then he makes a pleased sound, thumps around a bit more, and then Bruce feels him move closer to where Bruce is on his knees, legs spread. 

“This will be good,” Tony tells him, and snaps open a bottle of lube that must have come from inside the kink closet, as the last time Bruce had seen the lube it had been over by the cross with Phil. “Be as easy for me as you can,” Tony tells him, and swipes a couple of slick fingers across Bruce’s hole. He slides them both in at once, and Bruce makes a little hitching noise, still a little sore from Phil, but also still a little slick with his come, so it’s not as bad as it could have been. Tony adds a little more lube anyway, and Bruce decides just to be grateful, and then he hears Tony slick up the toy, the dildo or the plug, or whatever it is he’s pulled out of his closet to use in Bruce. He feels the head press against his hole, thick and wide, shaped like a cock, with the shape of the glans and everything as Tony pushes it slowly inside him. It stays wide for several inches, wide enough to be a dildo, but then it narrows at the bottom, so that Bruce’s hole clenches down tight around it, the base pressed up against the outside of his body. Bruce gasps a little as Tony spears him with it, but doesn’t actually start to cry until his asshole clenches around the bottom, so that he knows for sure that it’s a plug, and one long enough to press against him inside whenever he moves. He doesn’t know that it will drag along his prostate, but it feels wide enough, if Bruce is going to be pressing his cock into Tony with the thing buried inside him.

“Easy, Bruce,” Tony says, leaning forward to stroke across Bruce’s ribs. “This was your idea, remember.”

“I know,” Bruce half sobs. “I know, but I never quite remember how it’s going to feel until after it’s too late.”

“This will be good,” Tony tells him again. “Not as good as the curved one I used on you the other day, but I have no way of holding that one inside you. Trust me. Move more towards the middle of the bed.”

Bruce crawls forward, and the long, wide plug shifts inside him as he moves, the width of it enough to slide against his prostate, if not press directly against it, like the other toy Tony had been talking about. Bruce isn’t sure how he would have handled that other dildo, the one that Tony had wedged against his prostate while he’d flogged Bruce’s cock, so he decides to be grateful, at least, that that one hadn’t come with some kind of harness. Despite the invasion, despite the humiliation of it, Bruce is still entirely hard and eager. 

Tony climbs up onto the bed with Bruce, the bottle of lube still in one hand. “Do you want to do this, or shall I?” Tony asks, but he only watches Bruce’s face for a moment before a slight smile flickers across his lips, and he says, “It just gets you off all the way across the board to have someone else open the way for your cock, doesn’t it?” He sounds amused, but it’s a sharpish sound, and it makes Bruce’s cheeks burn even hotter because it’s true. He’d always felt that way about it. Tony opens the bottle of lube and squeezes a healthy dollop along the first two fingers of his right hand, then slides up until he’s on his knees, his legs spread wide, and reaches down between his legs to slide the lube along the cleft of his ass. He shivers a little, which makes Bruce shiver in turn, and incidentally wakes up the lines of bruises across his back and ass, but he watches, mesmerized, as Tony slips one finger in just partway, and then slides it out and adds the other, pressing both up into his body at the same time. Tony breathes out, a rough huff of sound that sounds like it is both good and effortful for Tony, and then Bruce stares as Tony begins slowly working himself open, fingers quick and practiced, as though he’s done it before, and more than just a few times. He scissors his fingers inside himself, and then pulls his fingers free to add more lube before pressing them inside even deeper, working himself open for Bruce’s cock.

Bruce jumps a little when Tony says, “Lean closer, I’m not letting you take me without you being slicked up, like you had Steve.” Bruce knee walks closer, and Tony pulls his fingers free and then squeezes lube directly into his palm. Bruce’s back arches painfully when Tony wraps his hand around Bruce’s cock, lubing the entire length of him carefully, and then Tony snaps the bottle of lube closed and tosses it over the side of the bed.

“Take it nice and easy, Bruce,” Tony says, swinging his leg back over so that he’s slick and ready and open for Bruce. Bruce eases his legs between Tony’s and nudges them slightly wider, and as soon as he bends to line his cock up with Tony’s hole, the plug in him shifts and presses against his prostate hard enough that Bruce has to bite down on his lip to keep from crying out before the head of his cock even touches Tony. He does his best to ignore it, pressing the head of his cock up against the slick opening of Tony’s body, and eases forward, watching in a way that he’d been too out of control to watch with Steve as Tony’s asshole stretches around the thick head of his cock -- Tony inhales sharply, but doesn’t object -- the glans catching a little at the pink skin at the rim of Tony’s asshole, and then finally slipping inside. Bruce goes shudderingly still at Tony’s heat and tightness around the head of his cock, and Tony himself lets out a little hiss. “Don’t stop,” Tony demands, and Bruce shifts forward a little further, and the plug inside him shifts with him, dragging a little moan of pleasure and humiliation through Bruce’s lips. Still, he presses more of himself into Tony, this time going slow enough to watch Tony open for him. “A little faster,” Tony directs. “And angle down a bit.”

Bruce pushes his arms up higher to comply, which both pulls at his back and ass and shifts the plug inside him, making Bruce shudder at the same time that he’s trying to obey Tony’s instructions, angling down a little and pressing inside a little faster. Bruce feels his face and chest flush at the feel of Tony’s body around his cock, and Tony says, “Yeah, keep it at that angle if you can,” his voice sounding low and hot. Bruce slides his knees up further and grasps Tony’s hips in both hands, and eases in a little further, feeling the plug inside him shift as well, pressing against the insides of him, but he keeps the angle, and slowly begins to slide the rest of the way inside Tony, who groans softly and presses back even as Bruce is pressing forward, so that the rest of Bruce’s cock vanishes inside of Tony’s body in one last, quick and mercilessly good slide. Bruce lets out a harsh breath, his head tipped back, just marveling at the way Tony feels around him, tight and flexing slightly as Tony rocks his hips, and hot as fresh blood. “Can you keep this angle?” Tony wants to know, his voice sounding strung taut and breathy now.

“I think so, Tony, I’ll try,” Bruce whispers, and pulls back slowly, feeling his cock slide free of the clench of Tony’s body even as the plug inside him presses forward, scraping along his prostate and making Bruce shudder hard enough to make the skin of his ass and back sing, but that is good, too, mixed with the feel of Tony’s body around his cock, and he rocks back in a little harder, gasping a little at the dual sensations of Tony’s cock around him and the plug shifting inside him. Tony gasps, too, his back dipping into a gorgeous arc as he lowers himself to his elbows, his fists bunched in the sheets.

“Just like that for a little while, Bruce,” Tony murmurs. “Nice and easy while I get used to your size.”

Bruce obeys, tugging out of Tony’s body slowly, but pushing back in a little harder, listening to Tony’s breath catch and hitch as he slides his cock over Tony’s prostate, while the plug inside him picks up some of the rhythm of Bruce’s strokes, pressing down against Bruce’s prostate when he pulls himself out of Tony’s body, then pulling back a little as he pushes himself back in. He isn’t aware of speeding up, is only aware of Tony’s breathing getting harsher, though still not as hoarse and full of effort as his own, the mix of Tony’s ass clenched tight around him and the pulling at the skin of his back and ass, and at the capricious movements of the plug inside of him driving him to go a little faster, a little deeper. When he does realize it, he starts to try to slow down, to give Tony something like that slow and easy pace he had seen Steve giving Tony, but Tony growls out, “Don’t you dare stop,” in such a harsh, commanding voice that Bruce’s hips jerk forward on their own, sending arcing messages of pain across his back and ass and shoving the plug roughly against his prostate, so that Bruce moans a little piteously at the combination. “Yes, like that,” Tony snarls, and Bruce bends forward along the line of Tony’s back and pushes in hard, taking the pain of his body and the shifting of the dildo as the price he is willing to pay to feel Tony clench and shudder around his cock. Taking Steve had been more urgent, he had been more frantic when he’d taken Steve, but Tony feels tighter and Bruce seems to be able to press himself in deeper, enough that Tony groans and jerks at the sheets where his hands are twisted into them, and the pain of his back and ass blend, and if the plug inside him doesn’t, not quite, it still does something for him, something that makes him shudder and twist his hips, so that Tony hisses, “Yes, like that,” again, and Bruce does as he’s told, until Tony chants, “Harder for me, Bruce, just a little more,” and Bruce lets go of the edges he’d been holding back from Tony, hips pistoning hard and deep, back blazing and ass aching, and the plug inside him driving him to twist around it, finally finding a way to almost control it, so that with every flexing twist of his hips it feels like it rotates inside him, pressing up against his prostate almost on every stroke.

“Tony,” he says, warning Tony or asking for permission, he isn’t sure, and Tony flexes and twists his body so that he’s slamming back against Bruce with every stroke.

Tony is hissing, “Almost, Bruce, just a little longer,” and Bruce is doing exactly as he’s told, and realizes that Tony is braced up on only one elbow now, his chin almost low enough to touch the bed, and Tony’s other hand is working Tony’s cock, and Bruce chokes out a little sound of desperation and need, shoving into Tony now just as hard as he’d been shoving into Steve, but with the plug in his ass pressed hard against his prostate now, as if it’s grown bigger, or as if Bruce has grown tighter, and he doesn’t stop but he isn’t going to last much longer. The hard ache of pain stretching across his back and ass is just another sensation, and Bruce is already drowning in sensation, is surrounded by it and entangled in it, and he actually hears himself cry out a little in relief when he feels Tony stiffening beneath him, his body shuddering and his ass clamping down tight, but still somehow twisting around Bruce’s cock. Tony lets out a brief, ragged cry that is almost loud enough to be a scream, and hearing that sound come from Tony’s throat is as much as Bruce can take. He plunges himself deeply into Tony’s body just twice more, the plug dragging sparks of pleasure up his spine, and he lets go, feeling his cock jerking and spasming inside the tight heat of Tony, making almost no sound himself beyond a grateful little gasp of pleasure and relief, and then he is draped across Tony’s back, breathing in desperate hitching breaths, and listening with a kind of helpless fascination as Tony continues to breathe out a low and continuous moan that goes on long after Tony has stopped moving beneath him.

Eventually, Tony quiets, and a few moments after that, he rocks his shoulders back against Bruce’s chest and murmurs, “Sit up, you’re heavy.”

Bruce sits up obediently, and the plug inside him jolts a little groan out of his throat as it grazes his prostate. His back and ass and even his thighs this time are singing out in pain, but not the kind of pain that Bruce can’t enjoy. He says, “Watching my cock push you open, Tony,” with no idea that he is going to say anything at all, let alone say it in the reverent tone in which it comes out.

“Good?” Tony asks, without pulling out from beneath Bruce’s body, with Bruce’s cock still pressed up into his ass, and Tony’s tone is almost a purr, a sound of smug satisfaction.

“I can’t remember the last time I saw my cock pressing into another body,” Bruce says, voice still low and a little reverent.

“Steve’s,” Tony reminds him.

“No,” Bruce says. “I was on him and then in him, that’s all I can remember of it. This was, god, even with the plug driving me crazy, it was better.”

“You were good,” Tony tells him, still with that low, smug sounding purr. “Even with the plug inside you. I might always plug you when I let you fuck me.” He shifts to look over his shoulder at Bruce. “How are your back and ass?”

“Blazing,” Bruce says, but in a way that he’s pretty sure Tony can tell that he doesn’t mind. “Thighs, too. But at the end, it was all just sensation, even the plug, all of it just washing through me like the tide.” And because he doesn’t think he’s ever gotten the chance to do it, he leans forward and scrapes his teeth along the hinge of Tony’s jaw. He sits up again almost at once, not wanting to be to heavy for Tony, but Tony just sighs. 

“I’ll have to get more plugs to use in you,” Tony muses. “Things like the other dildo I used on you, but with a harness or something to keep it in place. I wonder how long it would take you to fuck me with a cockring on.”

Bruce shivers at the idea, both a good shiver and a bad shiver at the same time. “Long enough to make you raw, I think, Tony,” he says seriously. “I can’t come with one on. Believe me, I have wanted to enough times that I would have figured out how to by now if I was going to find a way.”

“That could still be good,” Tony says. “Being fucked raw now and then is something I can live with.” The shudder that runs through Bruce this time is more anticipatory. “Pull out slow,” Tony says. “I’m a little sore as it is.”

Bruce does, biting back a groan as the plug shifts inside him, pressing against his tender prostate. Tony pushes him over onto his side as soon as he turns, and Bruce considers mentioning the plug still in his ass, but then doesn’t. He doesn’t think Tony has forgotten it is there. Tony slides over onto his side facing Bruce, and strokes his hair back from his brow. “Why the humiliation along with the fucking, Bruce?” he asks. “Why tell me to plug you when I know how it makes you feel?”

“Because,” Bruce says, trying to think again how to say it. “Because it was a distraction. Because with it in me, I wouldn’t be able to lose touch with my mind enough to take you the way I took Steve. I don’t regret taking Steve that way. He wanted it that way. We both did. But you wanted something else, and it was the only way I could think that I might be able to give it to you.” He closes his eyes for a long moment. “I might not always need that kind of distraction, but I did this time. I didn’t want to disappoint you, Tony.”

Tony smiles broadly. “You didn’t. You definitely did not. I still might plug you any time I let you fuck me. If you could have heard the sounds that you made with it in you, Bruce. And I liked how hard it made you work to be good for me. I liked that you were willing to do it.”

Bruce looks at Tony wordlessly, half afraid, but half just accepting that Tony might choose to do it just because Tony wants to do it. And he had given Tony that right. He hadn’t held anything back.

“Are your back and ass better than they were this morning, at least?” Tony wants to know.

Bruce shifts a little experimentally, feels the tug and the pull of the bruises. “I’m not entirely sure. I think so, but I used those muscles a lot today. Still, I don’t think I’ll be quite so crippled with pain in the morning. The day after is usually the worst. It may still hurt, but I don’t think I did myself any more damage than was already there. I think tomorrow will be better.”

“Turn over on your belly,” Tony orders. Bruce does, and feels Tony’s fingers tracing lightly along the skin of his back and ass again. Not hard enough to hurt, but just tracing some of the lines of the bruises lightly. “They already don’t look so dark. Some of them, anyway. The ones that crossed the tops of others are still just as dark.” He cups a cheek of Bruce’s ass. “These are going to hang around a little longer than the others, I think.”

“You can hit harder across the ass, there’s more flesh to take the punishment,” Bruce says.

“I’m aware,” Tony says dryly. “I may be a novice with a cane, but I’m betting there aren’t many other things I couldn’t take you apart with.”

Bruce shivers, but asks the question he’s been keeping to himself since that morning. “Will you use the cane, though? Did you like it?”

“I like the way you respond to it,” Tony says, tracing his fingertips along the bruises on Bruce’s back again. “I’ll want Coulson with me, I think, the first time I really decide to go at you with it, just to make sure I don’t make any mistakes.” He’s silent for several long seconds. “If I have Thor hold you down while I hurt you, do you think that will be the kind of thing you need to make him feel steady to you?”

“Maybe not hurt me, or maybe not a lot,” Bruce says cautiously. “Maybe just to fuck me. I don’t get the idea that Thor is all that into pain for the sake of either giving or receiving pain.”

“But he liked the drawing of you that Steve made after I marked up your front the other day. He even mentioned wanting to see it off paper,” Tony says. “Thor gets off on what whomever he’s watching gets off on, really. He isn’t a sadist per se, but he can appreciate the artistry of it.”

“I think either way would work for me,” Bruce says after thinking about it for several long moments. “It’s like the sex works fastest for me. I think if we never did anything in front of Thor at all, I’d eventually be able to accept that he’s steady. But once they see me at my worst, I’m more sure of them, more trusting.”

“You didn’t see Thor watching you get caned,” Tony says. “Like I said, he isn’t a sadist per se, but he appreciates the work involved on both sides to make it operate the way it’s supposed to. He may never fuck you. I could be wrong about that, he spends quite a bit of time with Clint and Natasha, and I don’t think they’re playing scrabble. I know he’s never made a move on Steve, but I think he perceived me and Steve to be a couple, and Thor is way too polite to step on anyone’s toes.” He pauses for a long moment. “You know, I have no idea whether or not he’s ever gone to bed with Coulson.”

“I don’t get the idea that either of them are the kiss and tell type,” Bruce says a little dryly.

“No, you’re probably right on that. I know Coulson has had Clint, but I’m not sure if he’s slept with Natasha. I get the sense that they have, just because they have a certain kind of closeness with one another, but I’m betting if they did, neither of them tried to top the other. I’m guessing comfort sex, or just company sex.” Tony makes a low humming sound.

“What did he do to you?” Bruce asks, because he can’t quite help himself. “When you subbed for him, I mean?”

“He cropped me to within an inch of my life and then fucked me until I was ready to cry,” Tony says. “Then he did both again. I don’t think he went into it planning on doing both twice. I think he just realized I could take it, and once he realized that, he couldn’t quite stop himself from doing it.” Tony pauses. “It was good. Maybe better than any top I’ve ever bottomed for. I’ll take you with me sometime and let you watch, if you’re interested in seeing it for yourself.”

“You told Clint the next time you were feeling submissive, he’d be the first to know,” Bruce reminds Tony.

“And he will, but I can handle Clint. If I take you with me if I even let Clint top me, you probably won’t be able to help but give him suggestions.” Tony sounds amused. “Are you ready for the plug to come out?”

“Please, Tony,” Bruce says truthfully.

“Lie still,” Tony says, and then swings up to straddle Bruce’s thighs. He pulls the plug out slowly enough that it makes Bruce groan and sweat just a little, and it feels longer than it had going in. When he glances over his shoulder at it, he recognizes it as the first plug Tony had ever used on him. “I like this one,” Tony says, as though he can read the question on Bruce’s face. “It’s like a combination dildo and plug, long and wide, but still narrow at the base, so you can’t push it out.” He sets it on the bedside table. “I’ll need to sanitize it. Remind me in the morning if I don’t get to it tonight.”

“Okay, Tony,” Bruce says, and rolls back over onto his side, feeling loose and empty with the plug no longer inside him. He’s a little startled to find that he misses it a little.

“You have sleepy eyes, Bruce,” Tony tells him when he lies down again to face him. “It’s early yet, but you had a busy day, and we got up fairly early this morning. Do you want to sleep on your side again, tonight?

“Yes,” Bruce says, and immediately realizes that he sounds grumpy. He rubs a hand across his face. “I am sleepy. But I don’t want to go to bed without you,” he admits.

“I want to spend a few hours in the workshop,” Tony says. “I’ve got an idea that might make you a lot less naked when you transform back into yourself from the other guy.”

Bruce brightens a little. “Yeah?”

“If I can do it with the collar, I think I can do it with fabric. It might not be the most stylish fabric in the world, but I’m thinking something along the lines of bike shorts, that you can wear under your regular clothes. I’m not sure of it yet, the crossover from metal to fabric might not be as simple as it feels like it should be in my head. But I’ve got the idea.”

Bruce considers that for a long moment, and then sighs. “Fine,” he says. “I’ll take any pants, even ugly ones.”

Tony scoots over to the side of the bed and retrieves the chain that Clint had dropped over the side earlier. “Slide down a little,” he says, and Bruce does without comment. Tony fixes the cuffs so that they’re close together on one side of the bar again, and then arranges pillows over the top them. “Hands,” he says. Bruce holds them out. Tony buckles the left down flat on the bed, tucks a pillow under Bruce’s chest, and chains the right one down across the top of it. Tony moves to the bottom of the bed, scooting the cuffs close together again, and just buckles Bruce’s ankles into the cuffs. “If you wake up and need me, tell Jarvis. If it’s an emergency, tell Jarvis you’re safewording, and I’ll run.”

“Okay, Tony,” Bruce agrees. He’s comfortable and tired and his back and ass still ache, but mostly pleasantly at the moment. Tony slides up closer to the top of the bed and kisses Bruce’s temple, his cheek, and then the corner of his mouth. Bruce turns his face up for real kisses, and Tony chuckles, but spends a good five minutes just making out with Bruce.

“I’ll try not to wake you when I come to bed,” Tony says.

“If you come to bed,” Bruce says knowingly.

“When I come to bed,” Tony repeats firmly. “If this is going to work without more time than I’m willing to put into it right now, it should only take me a couple of hours.”

“Okay,” Bruce agrees, and lets himself relax down into the softness of the mattress.

“Jarvis, close drapes,” Tony says quietly, and that’s the last thing Bruce hears before he falls into sleep like a stone.

**

When Bruce wakes up, Tony is sleeping in the curl of his arm again. Bruce feels another soft burst of that almost-amazement at just waking with Tony in his arms at all.

He blinks around the room, although he knows by this time that Tony doesn’t keep clocks in the bedroom, and wonders what woke him. He shifts, and his back is stiff and still sore, but it’s nothing as compared to waking up the morning before. He rather pressingly has to go to the bathroom, though, which isn’t a big surprise, since he’d gone to sleep early, and had apparently slept through at least a good chunk of the night. He ponders waking Tony up, but with his arms chained down the way they are, he can fairly easily get to the buckles himself if he really wants to get himself free. And he isn’t sure what time it really is. It’s always so dark in the penthouse bedroom. He decides he’ll uncuff himself, but before he’s even halfway done, Tony rolls over against him and murmurs, “Where the hell do you think you’re going?” He sounds a little groggy, but also just the faintest bit pissed off.

Bruce blinks. “To the bathroom. I wasn’t sure what time it was. I didn’t want to wake you.”

“If I tie you down, no matter how loosely, I’ll be the one to let you up, Bruce.”

“Okay, Tony,” Bruce agrees immediately, feeling obscurely guilty.

Tony wriggles out from under Bruce’s upper arm, and goes to work on the cuffs around his wrists. He tosses the comforter back and takes care of his ankles as well. “Jarvis, time?” Tony asks.

“Ten minutes after eight, sir,” Jarvis says, and Tony groans and flops back down on the bed.

Bruce bites back a laugh, and slides out of the bed and onto his knees, then back up again to enter the bathroom. He does his business and is washing his hands when Tony stumbles into the room, looking sleepy-eyed and just generally contemptuous of morning. Tony stands in front of the toilet, one hand braced on the wall, and takes a piss. By the time he makes his way over to the sink, Bruce is brushing his teeth.

“When did you come to bed?” Bruce asks, still trying to keep his amusement out of his tone.

“Not that late,” Tony says. “Just after one. I was done in the lab earlier, but Thor was eating pizza by himself in the penthouse, and it felt wrong to leave him eating all alone out there.” Tony washes his hands, and then retrieves his own toothbrush and starts brushing his teeth. Halfway through, his mouth still foaming, he says, “Make me coffee, and I’ll oil your back once I have a cup.”

“It’s not bad this morning,” Bruce offers.

“Coulson was emphatic about how often to oil it,” Tony says, and cocks a brow at him. “Make me coffee and I’ll let you attend me in the bath.”

Bruce grins a little. “It’s a deal,” he says, and takes himself out of the bathroom, drops to his knees to cross the floor of the bedroom, and gets back to his feet before he opens the door and goes out into the rest of the penthouse. It doesn’t occur to him that he’s naked before he hears voices, and then he decides it would be too obvious if he were to close the door and find something to wear before venturing out into the main room.

Clint, Natasha, and Thor are all sitting around the bar, talking in low voices and drinking coffee. Bruce grins a little at that. It means he won’t have to actually make coffee in order to bring Tony coffee.

“Good morning, Bruce,” Natasha says, and Bruce smiles at her, widening it to include Clint and Thor.

“Tony sent me out for coffee. I don’t think he thought it would be already made. Why are you all up so early?” Bruce asks. “And where is Steve. He’s usually up before dawn.”

“We haven’t seen Steve or Phil this morning yet,” Clint says, sounding cheerful about it. “If they have their way about it, we probably won’t see them all day. As far as the rest of us, Nat and I had an early night, and I’m not sure Thor slept at all.”

“I did not,” Thor agrees. “I cannot persuade Jane to accept Tony’s offer of laboratory space and equipment in the tower. I begin to despair of it.” Thor looks down into his coffee cup and swirls the contents in it. “She says it would be ‘selling out.’ I don’t fully understand what she means to convey by it.”

Bruce crosses to the counter with the coffee maker on it and retrieves a mug. He pours coffee for Tony, while he tries consider how to explain the concept of selling out to an alien, no matter how human he looks. “It means she feels she would be giving up her independence and might be forced to change her methods or her passions to please her superiors. Tony would never make her do that, of course, but I still understand why she might feel that way. Especially if she’s been offered other opportunities before that would have made her give those things up.”

“It is much as Tony explained it, though some of his explanations escaped my understanding. He has promised to draft her a proposal designed to help eliminate her concerns.”

“Tony told you this last night?” Bruce asks.

“Aye,” Thor agrees morosely.

“Then I’m not sure I understand why you’re still awake,” Bruce says.

Thor is silent for several long seconds. “It is my brothers naming day,” he says finally.

“Oh,” Bruce says, and then isn’t sure what to say to fix that.

Natasha throws him a look that says very clearly that she and Clint are taking care of it, and Bruce should go away.

“I’m sorry, Thor,” Bruce says carefully.

“It is none of your doing,” Thor says, shrugging one massive shoulder. “Best I should treat it as any other day.” But he’s still staring morosely into his coffee. Natasha throws Bruce another look, and Bruce takes the hint this time. He retreats into the bedroom with Tony’s coffee, and is happy to see Tony sitting upright still, on the side of the bed, though he’s drooping a little. He looks up and sees Bruce, and makes gimme-hands at the cup of coffee he’s holding. 

“Can I do this on my feet? I don’t want to slop coffee anywhere.”

“Yes, of course, yes,” Tony says, and Bruce crosses to the bed and passes him the cup of coffee.

“It’s Loki’s naming day,” Bruce says. “Thor seems pretty upset. Clint and Natasha are with him. Phil and Steve haven’t made an appearance yet.”

Tony gulps down several mouthfuls of coffee and then gives Bruce a frowning look. “I thought Thor was upset because Jane won’t come to work in the tower.”

“I think it’s a mixture of both,” Bruce says. “Natasha gave me a kind of ‘get out and let me handle this’ look, so I retreated.”

“If any of us can handle it, Natasha can,” Tony says, and gulps down some more coffee. “I’m not sure what Clint can do to help, except that he’s got a brother out there somewhere that he’s estranged from, too. That might help at least a little.”

“I didn’t know that,” Bruce says.

“I hacked SHIELD,” Tony says, not looking the least bit sorry.

“Of course you did,” Bruce says, smiling a little.

“It seemed like the thing to do when I suddenly had six housemates that I didn’t know from Adam,” Tony says wryly. “I don’t know that I learned all that much that was useful, really, but yeah. Clint has a brother. I think he’s in prison now, so I wouldn’t mention him to Clint.”

“I’m not planning on mentioning anything you found out to anyone that you got by hacking SHIELD,” Bruce says, and pushes back a ball of dread at what might have been in his own SHIELD file.

Tony finishes off his coffee in several long swallows, and sets the mug on the bedside table. The plug from last night is no longer there, so Bruce assumes that Tony had sanitized it and put it away.

“You could probably sleep some more if you really wanted to,” Bruce offers. “I can play bath attendant when you wake up.”

“No, believe it or not, I still got more sleep last night than I usually get when I’m working. I’ll be fine after I shower and drink another cup or two of coffee.”

“You said _bath_ attendant,” Bruce says, preparing himself for an argument. 

Instead, Tony chuckles. “You’re right, I did. Why don’t you start the jacuzzi and get what you want to use together. I’ll get up and get my own second cup of coffee.”

“Fair enough,” Bruce says, and slides to his knees on the carpet. In the bathroom, he lays out towels on the floor; even though Tony’s jacuzzi is enormous, two grown men in it can still splash around a hell of a lot of water. He recovers the body wash from the shower, along with the shampoo and a couple of wash cloths. He searches in the linen room cupboards and finds several kinds of bath salts and oils, but they all smell like flowers except for one nice herbal scent that he takes out and shakes liberally into the water. He sets out dry towels on the edge of the sink where they can easily reach them. 

Tony returns six or seven minutes later, and without another cup of coffee, which means he probably guzzled it already. Bruce has just turned off the water in the jacuzzi, and Tony glances around, seems to approve of everything that Bruce has done, and steps down into the water with a little sigh. Bruce follows him into the water, which only stings at his back and ass, which would have probably howled at the hot water yesterday, and settles down near his feet. Tony closes his eyes and rests his head against the back of the tub, and Bruce takes that as permission to start. 

He wets one of the washcloths and squirts body wash onto it, and starts with Tony’s feet, which he quickly discovers are extremely ticklish, so he has to take them very slowly to keep from getting kicked in the face. He works his way up Tony’s calves, stopping to rub them both until Tony is making a low hum of pleasure, and then works his way up to Tony’s thighs, where he does the same. He watches Tony’s face relax as he works his way up his body; Tony’s expression doesn’t even flicker when Bruce washes his cock and balls and gets the creases between his balls and thighs, though he does harden in Bruce’s hands. The low humming sound becomes a soft rumble as Bruce works his way across Tony’s belly and chest, skips down to scrub both arms, and then slowly eases Tony to one side so that Bruce can get behind him and reach his shoulders with both hands. He isn’t at all surprised to find that Tony carries a lot of tension in his shoulders, and he works on them until Tony finally murmurs, “You might as well stop, I could let you keep doing that all day.” Bruce considers being stubborn, but contents himself with the idea that he can try to get Tony let him play bath attendant two or three times a week, and that eventually he will work most of that tension out just by sheer repetition. He holds Tony’s head while he tips it back to get his hair wet, and then takes his time shampooing Tony’s hair, stopping only when Tony seems to be threatening to slide underneath the water if he doesn’t. He rinses Tony’s hair with as much care as he’d washed it, and when he’s finally done, Tony wraps him in both arms and drags him down so that the two of them are floating, with one of Tony’s arms slung across Bruce’s chest to make sure he doesn’t go under.

After the water starts to cool, Tony murmurs, “Your hair is wet, you should let me wash it,” so they run a little more hot water into the tub and Bruce lets Tony sit up near the head of the tub and tip Bruce’s head back to make sure his hair is wet all over, and then he just leans back against Tony’s bent knees while Tony washes his hair with just as much care and attention as Bruce had spent on Tony’s. It’s so relaxing that Bruce’s whole body feels like it’s made of cooked spaghetti, and Tony has to hold him up while he rinses the soap out so that Bruce doesn’t slip under the water.

Eventually, Tony twists the knob that will drain the tub, and they manage to step out of the tub and onto the towels Bruce had put down. Bruce snatches the first towel out of Tony’s hands and proceeds to dry him as carefully as he’d washed him. The corners of Tony’s eyes are crinkled with amusement by the time that Bruce lets him return the favor. Tony scrubs vigorously at Bruce’s hair, and then laughs heartlessly at him when he comes out from under the towel with it sticking up in curls and corkscrews. Bruce combs it down into some semblance of order, and then Tony leads Bruce firmly into the linen closet, but doesn’t even have to help him get one knee up onto the massage table this time.

It’s still sore, sore enough that the first minute or two under Tony’s hands make Bruce jerk and gasp a little with pain, but his back is much better than it had been yesterday, and his ass, while still a little sorer than his back, is still better than it was. Bruce still probably won’t be sitting on it much today, but he can at least lie down on his back, he’s pretty sure. The bruises across the backs of his thighs are still dark and tender, but even they are better.

“These are definitely better today,” Tony says, tracing a line of bruising across Bruce’s back. “Your ass is still pretty bruised, but your back is visibly better than it was.”

“It feels better,” Bruce agrees. “Still sore, but not the same kind of sore. I may not sit much today, but I should be able to lie down on my back at least.”

Tony rumbles out a soft laugh. “Planning on letting Natasha ride you sometime today?” he asks.

“Not ruling it out,” Bruce says, and then hesitates. “I would still want you there, Tony. I’m not sure I’m ready to be alone with anyone yet. I’m not sure if I’ll ever get to that point.”

“Good, I’d want to be there,” Tony says, and strokes his hands across Bruce’s ass one last time, before saying, “Go ahead and get up, I think you’re good for now.”

Bruce slides off the table and onto his feet, looking thoughtfully back at the table. Tony arches his brows in question, and Bruce blushes faintly. “I think that’s the first time I haven’t tried to rub off against the table,” he admits, and Tony laughs.

“Are you up to clothes this morning?” Tony asks, as they cross into the bedroom and Bruce drops down onto his knees.

Bruce considers this for a long moment, and then says finally,” I’m still not sure I’m up to anything too confining, but I brought my yoga stuff up with me yesterday, and I think I can manage that. It’s all soft and the shirt is loose enough.”

“Whatever you want,” Tony says easily. “I won’t object if you want to spend another day running around the penthouse naked.”

Bruce chuckles. “I didn’t really think you would,” he agrees. “But I’ll try my yoga gear, and see how that works out. I’m mostly only worried about my ass. The yoga pants are soft, but they’re form fitting. I’m not sure if they’ll rub.” He starts toward the chest of drawers that contain his drawer full of dress down clothes, but Tony catches him by the waist and turns him in his arms, pulling him into a kiss. Bruce leans contentedly into the kiss, his hands climbing up to curl around the back of Tony’s neck.

“If you do end up in bed with Natasha today, just let her have her way with you. She isn’t always a top, but you’re enough of a sub to push all her buttons, and you’ve been pushing them for days now. Other times, the two of you might just fuck, but the first time, I think she’ll want to take you over.” Tony has pulled back to look into Bruce’s face as he talks. “She can be gentle, and she often is, so if you ever need to go to her for comfort sex, she’s more capable of it than almost anyone else we have. But this first time, she’s been waiting and wanting you, and I don’t think she’s going to be gentle.”

“I don’t actually have a lot of need for gentle most of the time, Tony,” Bruce says honestly. “And if I do, I’ll come to you for it.” 

Tony kisses him again, brief but hot, and then lets him go. “Get dressed, you’re distracting me,” he says, but he slaps Bruce very gently across the ass as Bruce turns away, making him jump at the bright arc of pain that jolts across his skin.

“Don’t do that, or you’ll be distracting me,” Bruce says wryly, and Tony smirks as though pleased with himself, and opens one of his many closets to pull out something to wear. 

Bruce is cautious sliding the Yoga pants up over his ass, but once they’re settled, he thinks they’re going to be okay. The material is super soft and form fitting, so they aren’t likely to brush across his sore ass much. The lightweight tank top he usually wears with them isn’t nearly as soft, but it’s also tight enough that he doesn’t think it will be rubbing in an annoying way across the bruises still lingering across his back.

“This is how you dress for yoga, huh,” Tony says, eyeing Bruce with clear appreciation. “I’ll have to make the time to watch you doing it. Those pants do amazing things for your ass.”

“They also don’t hide a damned thing if I get hard in them either,” Bruce says dryly. “Kind of a mixed blessing.”

“They don’t hide much even when you’re not hard in them,” Tony observes, looking amused.

“Well, usually I’m wearing some kind of underwear underneath them,” Bruce says a little defensively. “But I can’t face the idea of underwear today.”

“It’ll be fine,” Tony says, and catches Bruce’s hand in his and turns it over to kiss his wrist just over the pulsepoint.

“It’ll have to be,” Bruce says, sighing a little at the feel of Tony’s lips slipping over the thin skin of the underside of his wrist. “They’re all I’ve got.”

“I’ll buy you lots of pairs of yoga pants,” Tony promises, and Bruce laughs a little. “Come on, let’s see about getting more coffee and maybe getting some breakfast started.”

Clint and Natasha have already started breakfast when they finally leave the bedroom, though. Clint is frying sausage, and Natasha is making french toast, which Bruce can already smell frying.

Phil and Steve have joined them, sitting at the bar, though Thor has disappeared somewhere. Phil is dressed down in jeans so worn Bruce is surprised to find that Phil even owns anything like them, and a t-shirt with the ARMY motto almost entirely faded away. He looks entirely pleased with himself, almost smugly so, except every time he turns to look at Steve, his expression goes soft and almost tender. Steve is wearing jeans and a plain blue t-shirt that brings out the color of his eyes, and is flushing a little, like he has been for a while and can’t seem to stop doing it, even though no one seems to be teasing him or even looking at him.

Tony immediately notices, and smirks a little. “What did you do last night, that you’re still blushing from this morning.” Phil’s lips quirk, but he doesn’t jump in to defend Steve, and Steve’s face brightens even more. His eyes flash to Bruce, looking a little pleading, but Bruce isn’t sure why Steve thinks Bruce has any control over Tony. 

He tries anyway, because he’s a good friend. “Let him at least eat breakfast, first, before you tease him, Tony.”

Natasha says, “We’re running out of eggs, Tony, for the next time you order delivery for the penthouse. Milk and a few other things, too. Do you want me to start a list?” 

Bruce recognizes this as Natasha’s way of helping, too, and sees Steve’s gratitude flash across his face from the corner of his eye. “I’ve got a whiteboard on my floor that we can repurpose for list making,” Bruce says. “I’ll go get it after breakfast, and then anyone who notices we’re running short on anything can add to it.” He glances over at Tony. “I’ll take over ordering groceries for you, too, if you want, Tony,” he offers.

Tony throws a last look at Steve’s pink cheeks, and then lets himself be distracted. “Yeah, that sounds good,” Tony says. “You’re more likely to get the things I don’t think of. When I ordered, I just kind of went through the whole inventory and picked out anything that sounded good.”

“So that’s why you have seven boxes of cereal, but only one carton of milk,” Clint says, sounding amused.

“I like cereal,” Tony defends, though Bruce isn’t sure he’s ever seen Tony eat a bowl of cereal. Of course, before Tony had collared him, he hadn’t really spent a lot of mornings in the penthouse for breakfast. He wonders how long the rest of the team has been getting together for breakfast here as a matter of course. It makes him feel sad for a brief instant, but it doesn’t last. He’s here now, and so are they, and he’s glad to be included. “Besides, milk goes bad fast,” Tony adds.

“Not as fast as we go through it,” Natasha says. “I think, though, if we’re going to keep shopping online and getting together for breakfast most mornings, and other meals periodically, you might want to think about getting a second refrigerator.”

Tony glances over at his refrigerator, which is a fairly large capacity model, but not the largest by far. “You think?” he says, and turns to Bruce. “Will we be getting together for breakfast and other meals most days?” Bruce must look confused, because Tony adds, “I can throw together breakfast, it’s not all that complicated, but if we’re going to add other meals, I won’t be doing most of the cooking. Clint makes a few dishes pretty well, and Coulson makes the best chili I’ve ever eaten, but you cook more than the rest of us put together. Or at least, you know _how_ to cook more than the rest of us.”

“Oh, uh,” Bruce says, and turns to the refrigerator, looking at it again from the perspective of stocking it to feed seven people, one of which is a super soldier with a huge appetite, and the other one a god, with an appetite only slightly smaller. “Yes, I think Natasha is right. I’m not sure where we’ll put it, but if we’re going to be feeding all of us on a semi regular basis, it doesn’t really hold enough to keep enough food in stock.”

“There’s a pantry right next to it, a walk in job that’s twice as big as it really needs to be,” Steve says. “It will fit another fridge inside it.”

“I’ll order it done tomorrow,” Tony says, clapping his hands as though to indicate that it’s a done deal. He pours himself the last cup of coffee in the pot, and surprises Bruce a little by immediately making another pot. “Where did Thor get off to?” he asks, but casually, as though he isn’t sure what Steve and Coulson know about Thor’s personal problems, and doesn’t want to bring them up in front of them without some indication of whether or not they know.

“I sent him to bed,” Natasha says. “I think I got him mostly straightened out on what Jane means by not wanting to sell out to Stark Industries, and about the fact that you’d never make her, but the rest of it.” She sighs, and flips four slices of french toast onto a plate. “He may just have to figure out how to deal with it being his brother’s birthday in his own way.”

Clint gives Tony a serious look. “He misses him,” he says. “Loki, I mean. I got the idea that things hadn’t been perfect between them for a while, but they had still been more good than bad until Loki took a dive off the rainbow bridge, and then reappeared with plans to take over the Earth.”

“You don’t get to pick your family,” Phil says, his voice a little tight. “Mine were more or less pacifists. The took me signing up for the Army pretty hard. We don’t talk much anymore.”

Steve lifts a hand, hesitates for a moment, and then rests it on top of Phil’s where it’s resting on the table. Phil twines their fingers together, and turns to look at Steve, his whole face going lighter, less strained.

If it isn’t love, at least on Phil’s side, it’s pretty close. Bruce hopes fervently that Steve will eventually catch up with him. Seeing the way that Steve’s face brightens at the change in Phil’s expression gives him some hope in that direction, anyway. He no longer doubts Tony’s declaration that Phil would have offered Steve a collar without ever knowing that Steve might come into liking pain at some point. He hadn’t noticed, but he hadn’t known the way the rest of the team had worked before he’d joined them, before he’d taken Tony’s collar and they’d all let their guard down around him. He’s only glad now that, if Phil does ever decide to offer, he won’t be doing it thinking that he will have to keep that part of him that is a sadist boxed up in the back of his mind, never to be opened again. And looking at Steve’s face, warm and soft and still with a touch of pink tinging his cheeks, Bruce thinks there might be real hope for the two of them.

“Someone start getting out the plates,” Natasha says, and Bruce turns to do it without thought, obeying the tone in her voice, which isn’t really and order, but sounds enough like one to draw Bruce’s attention. She smiles at him, almost like she knows it, but otherwise doesn’t stop doing what she’s doing, which is stacking slices of french toast onto a serving plate. Bruce sets the table, with Tony following him around with forks and knives, and Clint leaves the sausage on the burner long enough to make sure everyone has something to drink.

“I put the kettle on for your tea, Bruce,” Clint says, and Bruce can’t quite stop himself from catching Clint by the hip and dropping a brief kiss on his lips. Clint smiles, soft and sweet, and then turns back to the sausage.

Bruce leaves the chair that has been pulled out for the last two days where it is, though he thinks he might be able to sit on it, if not for very long. He’d rather stand, and save up any abuse his ass might have in store for it for later, for something likely to be more fun than merely sitting down to eat.

“How are you healing,” Phil asks, and Bruce shrugs a little.

“Not as quickly as Steve, but more quickly than I ever did before the serum. My back is still bruised, but is a lot better. My ass is still pretty tender. The bruises on my thighs are still pretty dark, but they seem a lot better than they were that first day, too.”

“Thighs are always more tender,” Phil says. “No one realizes how much you use your thigh muscles for things until using them is suddenly painful. Well, you know. I saw the marks Tony left on the insides of your thighs when he cropped your front.”

“That was my first time, for my thighs in that spot,” Bruce says. “It was…” He pauses to try to draw out what he really means, and finally settles for, “desperately hot and overwhelmingly painful. I’ve had the back of my thighs cropped before, so I knew a little better what to expect, but the insides were… new and unexpected.”

“I plan to do it again, soon,” Tony says seriously, and then takes the serving plate of french toast from Natasha and sets it down in the center of the bar. Clint brings the sausage over on a similar serving plate, both links and patties, and puts them down next to the french toast. “Grab the syrup, Bruce, it’s on top of the fridge,” Tony directs, and Bruce turns to do it, discovering that they have three kinds of syrup, and smiling, decides it’s probably a bad idea all around to let Tony do the online grocery shopping. He brings over all three bottles anyway, and without any kind of thought involved, serves Tony, sitting beside him, pausing only to ask what kind of syrup he wants. “Are you attending me, Bruce?” Tony asks, a little gruffly, and Bruce is a little startled to realize that he had been.

“Yes, I. I didn’t even think about it. I think because I attended you in the bath this morning.”

Tony gives him a long look, face almost neutral, and says, “If it makes you happy, carry on, but if I ever want total attendance, we’ll do it in the living room. The coffee table is lower, and I can feed you if you’re on the floor in there.”

Bruce feels his cheeks heat, but just says, “Whatever you want, Tony,” and means it. The rest of the table is silent for a long moment, and then everyone starts to serve themselves. Steve catches his eyes from across the bar, his brow slightly furrowed in question. Bruce shakes his head, and mouths the word, “Later,” at him, because if Phil doesn’t expect attendance now, Bruce will take the time to teach him the basics, so that Phil can have it when he’s ready for it. Bruce serves himself last, and when the kettle starts to whistle, he excuses himself to fix himself a cup of tea. “Tony, did you buy honey?” Bruce asks, once he’s filled the tea ball and dropped it in his cup to steep. 

“Yeah, it’s in the pantry.” Tony sounds a little embarrassed. “They had three kinds, and I wasn’t sure which kind you liked, so I got them all.”

Bruce finds the honey in the pantry, takes out the organic jar, and brings it along with his tea cup and a saucer back to the table.

“Thank you, Tony,” he says, and kisses his cheek. Tony blushing is not something he sees very often, and he doesn’t stop looking at him until it fades. Then he turns toward his own plate, and butters and drizzles syrup over his french toast. Natasha is smiling faintly on the other side of Tony, and even Clint looks a little like he’s pleased and amused at the same time, but Bruce tries not to pay any attention to it, because that’s what Tony is doing. When his tea cools off enough, he slips the ball out and lets it drain over the cup, before he stirs in just enough honey to add a little sweetness to his tea. He catches Tony watching how much honey he adds, and pretends not to notice.

Thor shows back up when they are almost already finished eating, and he looks distracted and unhappy, but has never had french toast before, and the rest of them manage to nudge him gently out of his mood by letting him try all three kinds of syrup, before he decides which to put on his toast. He pronounces the french toast to be Asgardian in standard, and convinces Natasha to write out the instructions on how to prepare it, so that he can pass it on to his mother the next time he returns home. He drinks enough coffee that Tony gets up and makes a third pot -- Thor has come a long way, but they have learned not to trust him with the coffee maker, though he seems to do okay with the Keurig -- and they linger around the breakfast table for a while. Natasha abandons her plate and stands behind Thor, rubbing his shoulders and neck for long enough that Bruce speculates that she must have quite a bit of strength in her hands and forearms. It’s enough that Thor relaxes, and thanks her with a kiss on the back of her hand, and then proceeds to drink enough coffee that if he weren’t a god, he’d probably be vibrating.

Phil and Steve clear the table -- Tony, Bruce notes, absolutely never takes his turn at doing the dishes -- while the rest of them talk, meandering from subject to subject, until Thor seems to realize for the first time that Bruce is standing, rather that sitting.

“Have you still so much pain from the caning that it prevents you from sitting for a meal?” he asks, sounding a little shocked.

“I could sit, probably,” Bruce assures him. “But I’m still sore enough that I’d rather stand, so that if I have to sit later for something more fun, I’ll be able to do it.”

Thor looks confused for a moment, and then understanding brightens his face. “So that if lust rears its head, you will not be so limited,” he says, and Bruce thinks only Thor could say something like that, and make it sound almost normal.

“Pretty much exactly,” Bruce agrees. 

Thor glances at Tony, and then back at Bruce again. “Natasha and Clint told me of what happened while I was away yesterday,” he says, and Bruce realizes that for Thor, he is being cautious. “I would have liked to have seen any of it. Would still like to see any of it you might wish to show me.” There’s an expression in his eyes that looks to Bruce like he might mean something along the lines of right now, rather than at some point later, and Bruce reminds himself that it’s Thor’s brothers naming day, and that Jane is back in New Mexico, and thus out of reach for comfort, and he glances a question at Tony, and finds Tony already looking a question at Bruce.

“I can’t take it across my back, but if you wanted to flog my cock again, that would be the best way to have him hold me down I think.” He doesn’t even realize that he’s saying it in front of the whole team until Natasha looks at him, her eyes bright with interest.

Tony ignores everyone else, his attention fixed on Thor. “Would you be willing to do that? Not just watch, but hold Bruce down while I do things to him. I know you want to see, but Bruce will take it better if you’re willing to help at least that much.”

“I have concerns about interfering with those of you that have come together as partners,” he says seriously. “I have no wish to interpose myself where I’m not welcome.”

“You’d be welcome,” Tony says. “Bruce and I have already talked about you, and what we’d be willing to do with you and for you. We hadn’t expected it quite so soon, but we wouldn’t offer if we hadn’t already both agreed that you’d be welcome.”

“More than welcome,” Bruce adds. “Wanted. I like to be held down. You’ll be good at it.”

Thor’s eyes brighten. “When?” is all he asks.

“Another half an hour, to let our breakfast settle a little,” Tony says. “Will that suit you?”

“Imminently,” Thor agrees, and some of the stress that Bruce hadn’t realized was pulling Thor’s face into taut and unhappy lines seems to have faded, or at least retreated, for the time being.

Bruce looks at Natasha, a little worried that she won’t be pleased at having been leap-frogged over by Thor, but she actually looks quite pleased, like she couldn’t have thought of a better solution to Thor’s melancholy than to send him to bed with Tony and Bruce for a while. She catches him looking at him, and gives him a quick little smirk and a wink, just, Bruce thinks, to show that she hasn’t forgotten what he’d already agreed to do with her.

Bruce drinks his tea and tries to keep his mind off of the idea that Tony is going to flog his cock again, but can’t quite do it. That had been so good, and Steve holding him had just made it better. He can’t imagine it being any different with Thor. And, if he’s honest, the idea of Natasha riding him with his cock still sore from being cropped has its attractions. He might last longer, for one, and… and, well, because the idea just flat does it for him.

Clint says, “I don’t suppose we’ll all be invited to see that.” It isn’t really a question, and he doesn’t sound hopeful.

“Don’t be spoiled,” Natasha says. “I’m sure you can watch Tony flog Bruce’s cock another time. Besides, you have paperwork still waiting for you to finish at SHIELD. Fury told me to remind you that if he doesn’t get it by the end of the week, he’s going to limit your range time.”

Clint huffs out a disgusted sound, but rolls his shoulders in a shrug that looks more or less easy. “Can’t hurt to check,” he says philosophically. “What are your plans?”

“I’ve got some errands to run,” Natasha says. “Nothing big, but things I’ve been putting off. It won’t take me long if I go during the weekday, when things are open and the lines are short.”

“Well, shit,” Clint says. “I guess I’ll do paperwork instead of have some kind of sex, then.” He sounds sulky, but his face isn’t sulky at all. It’s alive with interest as he looks from Thor, to Tony, and then to Bruce. “Do you think we could watch it on the feed, at some point?”

Tony shrugs. “If it’s okay with Thor, I have no problem with it,” he says, and Clint turns a hangdog expression toward Thor.

“The video of which you spoke of watching yesterday?” he asks. Clint nods, and Thor shrugs as well. “I would like to see it from any angle I can.”

“Excellent,” Clint crows, and gets up to carry the two skillets to the sink for Steve and Phil to wash and load into the dishwasher. Steve notes his erection tenting out the front of his sweats, and is mostly amused by it. He remembers Steve telling him that he could go to any of the team just to sleep if he wanted, except for Clint. That Clint always wanted sex. Bruce wonders how much of that is just Clint, and how much of it is because he’s a switch, and his desires seem to reverse themselves almost at the drop of a hat. Not to mention the fact that Steve had been the only sub available to Clint at the time, the only person with whom he would have been able to let that part of him come out. He suspects he’s closer to being right with that theory than with any of the others.

“Another cup?” Tony asks him, and Bruce realizes that Tony is already reaching for his mug.

“No, not if we’re going to be putting on a show in just a few minutes,” Bruce says. Tony nods, his gaze locked on Bruce’s for several long seconds. 

“You’re sure this is alright with you?” he asks quietly.

“Definitely sure,” Bruce says, smiling a little, and Tony’s answering smile is dark and a little vicious looking.

“You’ll be sore, if you go down for Natasha later,” he says, but his eyes are still dark when he says it.

“I know,” Bruce says, and doesn’t try to hide how much the idea appeals to him. Tony laughs softly.

Steve and Phil finish loading the dishwasher, and close it up and flip the knob to on. They return to the bar and settle down again, but Phil takes a look at Thor’s face and then turns to flash a glance down at Bruce and Tony’s end of the bar. There’s a question in it, but Bruce thinks it’s one he’s not going to actually ask. It turns out that he doesn’t have to.

Clint slumps down into his seat and says, “Thor gets to hold Bruce down while Tony flogs his cock.”

Steve smiles faintly, as though caught in memory, and Phil arches a brow at Clint. “I take it you weren’t invited, and are hoping for some sympathy?”

“I should have known better, from you,” Clint says. “Steve, you feel sorry for me, don’t you?”

“I’ve held Bruce down for that before,” he says. “It’s definitely worth seeing.” He doesn’t actually say that he sympathizes, but Clint looks a little more cheerful, like he’d taken it that way.

“Only Steve truly loves me,” he says in a tragic voice.

Phil snorts. “If we didn’t all love you, none of us would put up with you.”

Clint blinks at Phil as if startled, and then smiles a softly happy little smile.

Natasha asks, “How quickly does Bruce recover from having his cock flogged,” and she doesn’t even try to pretend that she isn’t personally invested in the answer.

“Within a couple of hours,” Tony says. “It would be more if I gave him all that he really wants, but I’m not looking to actually cut him up. He’ll be sore for the rest of the day after he recovers, but not too sore.” Tony doesn’t say, ‘Not too sore for you to have him,’ but Natasha apparently hears it anyway. Her lips quirk up briefly, and she stands up.

“Things to do,” she says. “I’ll be back in a few hours. Tony, can I take the Ferrari?”

“For errands?” Tony asks, brows arched.

“Might as well have fun while I’m doing them,” she says, and Tony sighs, but nods. 

“You know where the keys are.”

“Thanks,” she says, and opens the cupboard with all of the car keys dangling from hooks attached to the inside of the door, slips the set she wants off the hook, and throws the whole table a little wave as she makes her way to the elevator.

Steve is throwing a little sideways look at Phil, which Phil no doubt notices, but pretends to ignore for a few minutes. Eventually, Steve says, “Phil,” in a voice that trembles between hopeful and insistent. Bruce has no idea what their plans are, but one side of Phil’s mouth quirks upward in response to Steve’s tone.

“I’m going to teach you patience, eventually,” he says, but he stands up, and Steve stands up so quickly that he has to catch his chair with one hand to keep it from going over backward. Phil glances around the table, just giving them all a kind of general nod, and cups Steve’s elbow in his arm and leads him to the elevator.

“Damn,” Clint says. “I hope Phil decides to share him at some point.”

“You’ve slept with Steve before, Clint,” Tony says.

Clint shakes his head. “Not since he’s started learning what really gets his motor running,” he says. “That will be a game changer.”

Bruce can’t really argue with that, so doesn’t try. 

Clint stands up, finishes the swallow of coffee left in his cup, and says, “I’ll go slave away on SHIELD paperwork while the three of you have your fun.” He sounds faintly bitter about it, but the smile he gives is genuine. “Good luck, Bruce,” he says, and makes his own way to the elevator.

Thor looks at them from across the bar. “If this is not something you are willing to share with me, I understand,” he says.

“We already told you we were,” Tony says. “Finish your coffee, and you can get your voyeurism kink tended to from up close and personal.”

Thor tips his mug forward, showing it to be empty.

Tony stands up, though he still has half a cup of coffee, and Bruce stands up as soon as Tony does. Thor stands up a little more slowly. “I haven’t seen the things you mean ‘from up close and personal’ unless I was already involved in the activities,” Thor says.

“You’ll like it,” Tony says, and sounds certain. “It’s all the pleasure of getting to watch combined with all the satisfaction of helping to make it happen.”

“I’m intrigued, at the very least,” Thor says, and Tony leads them into the bedroom, with Thor bringing up the rear. Tony stops him before Bruce gets to the knee line, and says, “Strip down here, so you aren’t trying to do it from your knees.”

Bruce finds himself blushing faintly, but strips out of his yoga pant and tank top obediently, laying them across the top of the chest of drawers. 

“Thor, make yourself comfortable, however it pleases you to do so,” Tony says, and urges Bruce past the knee line, so that Bruce goes down, and moves to sit by the bed. Tony just strips off his shirt, leaving his jeans on, and after a moment, Thor does the same, though he’s wearing sweats instead of jeans. Tony goes to the kink closet and opens it up, but only pulls a couple of things out of it. One of them is the short flogger that he’d used on Bruce before. He has something smaller in his other hand that Bruce can’t see from over the top of the bed.

“When we did this before, Steve leaned against the headboard and Bruce just kind of laid back against him. For you I think it will be better if you kneel at one of the top corners of the bed, so you can see all of Bruce while we do this. Just toss the comforter off the bed, and any pillows that are in your way.”

Thor climbs up to the bed and shoves the comforter and several pillows over the side so that they land almost on top of Bruce.

Bruce is hard already, his back and ass aching a little. “Ready, Bruce?” Tony asks. Bruce, mouth a little dry, only nods. “Okay, get up and lie diagonally across the bed. Stretch your arms out above your head this time. Thor can pin your wrists.”

Bruce scrambles up onto the bed, and even lying diagonally across it, there is still plenty of room for Tony. He pushes Bruce’s knees closer together, and then straddles them. Bruce sees that the other thing Tony is holding is the cockring too late to do anything about it. Thor has gripped his wrists firmly in his big hands, and Bruce is already pinned. Tony wraps the cockring around his cock and up under his balls and snaps it tight. Tears prickle in Bruce’s eyes, but Tony only says, “I’m not planning on restraining you this way the whole time, but can you really tell me that you won’t come almost embarrassingly quickly after attending me in the bath?”

Bruce shakes his head, but still feels a rush of relief.

“What is it that you’ve caught him up in?” Thor asks.

“You’ve been playing with Clint and Natasha all this time and you’ve never seen a cockring?” Tony asks.

“No,” Thor says simply.

“It’s a kind of restraining device that wraps around the cock and balls and keeps a man from coming too quickly. Some men can still come with a cockring on, eventually, but Bruce isn’t one of them. He was either trained not to be able to, or it’s simply something his body can’t quite accomplish as long as it’s around him.” Tony pauses, looking a question at Bruce.

“I’ve never been able to,” Bruce manages to choke out. “There was no need to train me not to.”

“And you’re going to strike him across the cock with that?” Thor asks, and leans forward, so that all Bruce can see for a long moment is Thor’s bare belly blocking his view as he examines the flogger. “I have seen Natasha strike Clint before, and often. That does not seem like such a hard thing to take.”

“You haven’t seen Natasha hit Clint across the cock with anything, I’m betting,” Tony says, sounding amused. “And you’re partly right, this isn’t a very hard tool. I have several other things that are much harder, but would also cause him a lot more damage. This flogger has plain leather strands, knotted leather strands, which hurt quite a bit more, and has dulled metal barbs plaited into some of the strands, which will hurt a lot more than the knotted strands. I don’t want to leave him unable to function, after this. But trust me, it will hurt quite enough while I’m using it on him.”

Thor holds out an arm, and says, “Give me to see,” which Bruce takes to mean to let him feel how it will feel.

“It won’t be as bad around your arms as it’s going to be against the skin of his cock,” Tony points out.

“I know, but still, give me to see what the blows are like,” Thor insists.

Tony shrugs and cocks back his arm, and just the sound of the flogger striking the skin of Thor’s arm is enough to make Bruce’s cock jerk a little against his belly in anticipation.

Thor draws his arm back and Bruce looks up to see him watching the red lines appear across the skin of his arm, especially against the more delicate flesh of the underside of his arm.

“And this gives him pleasure?” Thor asks, flexing forearm slightly, as though to shake off the brief pain of it.

“Does Clint get pleasure when Natasha hits him?” Tony asks.

“Yes, but I felt the sting of the thing. Against his cock, it won’t be more pain than pleasure?” Thor wants to know.

“Bruce likes the pain, just like Clint does. More than Clint does. Bruce can take the kind of pain most people don’t even fantasize about taking. He’ll take it, and he’ll love it. He’s already hard, and he’s had it used on him before, so he knows what it’s like.” Tony pauses. “If this makes you uncomfortable, it doesn’t have to go any further than this.”

“Not uncomfortable,” Thor rumbles softly. “Interested. Perhaps even a little excited, as he so clearly is. My desire to watch and see doesn’t end just at the line of pleasure. I just wonder at how much he can take, when he took so much already from the caning.”

“Speaking of the caning, how is your back against the sheets,” Tony asks Bruce.

“My back is pleasantly sore, my ass is a little more painful. My thighs are actually worse than my back, lying with them pressed down with your weight resting partway on them,” Bruce says.

“Is it too much?” Tony asks.

“No, Tony. I’m looking forward to it,” Bruce assures him, assures them both.

Tony looks back at Thor. “He will probably scream,” Tony warns him. “He will almost certainly cry. It doesn’t mean he doesn’t like it or doesn’t want it. It just means that as much as he does like it, it’s still pain, and his body reacts to it.”

“Does he have a word,” Thor asks seriously. “Clint and Natasha have words that they use to stop things from going too far.”

“Defenestration,” Bruce answers for Tony. “My safeword is Defenestration.”

“I am satisfied,” Thor says, and his hands tighten a little around Bruce’s wrists, pressing his hands down against the mattress.

“Ready, Bruce?” Tony asks, and Bruce, dry-mouthed again, just nods.

The first blow is more of a tap than a blow, just enough of a snap to remind Bruce of how delicate the skin of his cock really is. It doesn’t stop him from hitching in a harsh breath, and he hears Thor above him hitch in a breath as well. Only Tony doesn’t breath in harshly. He meets Bruce’s gaze for a long moment, and then raises his arm and brings down the flogger again, hard this time, enough that Bruce’s back arches and he cries out. The skin of his back burns as it drags against the sheet beneath him, but that pain only makes it more encompassing, better, and when Tony brings the flogger down across his cock again, Bruce’s cry drops down into a moan at the end of it. His cock jerks with the pain, but moisture drips from the slit and slips down to bead against the skin of his belly. Bruce wants to urge him on, wants Tony to go faster, but is at least still somewhat aware of Thor there with them, and suspects that Tony might be going slow enough to let Thor get used to the sight and sound of Bruce taking it. He twists his wrists in Thor’s hands, and Thor tightens his grip, and then Tony is swinging again, and the pain explodes across his cock, the tips of the flogger flicking across his belly, and Bruce lets out another sound that starts life as a cry, but ends it as a moan.

Tony must have either decided that Thor could be depended on, or had seen something on Thor’s face that Bruce can’t see from below and upside down, because he swings the flogger more quickly now, each blow jolting Bruce’s back and ass, and causing his cock to dance and jerk at the pain. Tony finds a rhythm, and Bruce gives himself over to it, so that soon he’s arching his hips up into every strike, though his cries have escalated to screams, and Thor’s hands around his wrists are careful, but steady, there is no way Bruce could slip one of his hands free. He doesn’t want to, but with every blow he finds himself trying the hands wrapped around his wrists anyway, arching up with a scream, and then twisting his wrists to make sure he’s still caught tight. His breath comes in harsh inhalations, leaving him in screams as Tony strikes him across the cock again and again, and Bruce can feel the orgasm building in his belly but the cockring, the fucking cockring, and Tony doesn’t pause between blows at all now, so that Bruce is bowed upward, pulled taut as he struggles up into the pain, tears streaming from his eyes and disappearing into his hairline, and he finally manages to beg hoarsely, “The cockring, Tony, the cockring,” in a rough and needy voice.

“If you promise me ten more before you let go,” Tony says, without stopping at all while he demands it, so that it takes another long stretch of seconds for Bruce to get the breath to reply.

“Yes, I promise, ten more, I promise,” and then Tony’s hand jerks the cockring open and tosses it away, and Bruce clenches his teeth tight together, his screams coming through clearly still, just strangled as he tries to count, his hips rocking up into every blow so that it’s easier to count the jerking of his hips than it is to keep track of the aching snaps of the blows themselves, and he almost loses track of those, he is focusing so hard on not letting go, not fucking it up.

Tony says, “That’s enough, Bruce, you can come now,” and brings the flogger down across his cock again even as the words penetrate the haze of pain and want Bruce’s mind is clouded with, so he doesn’t actually let go until the next blow lands, and then he shrieks with the sudden release of his control, and Tony keeps the flogger going, but almost gently, lightly grazing the skin of his cock as Bruce stripes his belly with his come, and Tony doesn’t stop entirely until Bruce is limp and crying softly in release and relief and at the cunning pleasure of the aching stripes criss crossed in red welts against the thin skin of his cock. Tony leans over and licks the come off of his belly, and then from along the head of his cock, which makes Bruce writhe again and tug futilely against Thor’s hands wrapped around his wrists.

Tony pulls back briefly, and then as though he can’t quite stop himself, he bends and runs his tongue up the entire length of Bruce’s cock, so that Bruce lets out another of those high, almost shrieking cries, and then Tony’s hands are stroking gently across Bruce’s chest and ribs, soothing him down from the intensity of the pain and the pleasure, and after a couple of minutes of this, Bruce’s breathing slows down enough to only come from his throat a little raggedly. Tony reaches up and wipes the streaks of tears from Bruce’s face, and Bruce presses his face against Tony’s hand until Tony twists it to the side and lets Bruce press his face into his palm. Thor’s hands are still curled firmly around Bruce’s wrists, and stretched out as he is across Tony’s bed with Tony straddling his thighs, he has no desire to be released yet. He leaves his wrists loose in Thor’s grip and shudders as he comes down from the pain, while Tony’s hands slide down his chest to cup his hips and squeeze them lightly.

“Thank you, Tony,” Bruce finally manages to husk out. And then, because that’s only half of what needs doing, breathes out, “Thank you, Thor.”

Thor’s hands tighten briefly around his wrists.

Tony asks, “Are you ready to be let go?” like he knows how satisfying the feel of Thor’s hands trapping his wrists had been, and Bruce sighs a little, aching and hurting, cock, back, ass, and thighs, and just a little from the pressure of Thor’s grip on his wrists.

“I guess so,” he says, and doesn’t sound like he means it, even to himself.

“Are you tired, Thor?” Tony asks.

“Not in the least,” Thor says. “I would be pleased to hold him as long as he wishes to be so held.”

“Better than Steve?” Tony asks, as if he’s genuinely curious.

Bruce feels a little leap of guilt in his belly at the answer, but answers anyway. “Yes. Stronger, and he didn’t let go right after. Steve was worried and let go.”

“Are you worried, Thor?” Tony asks.

“No. I am aroused, but not worried,” Thor answers at once. “His pleasure was obvious, as was the care you took with him. I’m grateful to have been allowed to witness this.” Then Thor chuckles a little ruefully. “Having been so close to it, I wonder if I will still be as satisfied to watch from across the room.”

Bruce smiles. “You can hold me down any time you want to,” he says, and means it, even though some scrambled part of his brain is trying to inform him that it won’t always be practical.

“Within limits,” Tony qualifies at once, but he sounds amused. “You’ll have to forgive him, he’s drifting in his subspace right now, and could say almost anything.”

As if to prove it, Bruce says, “If he wants me, he can have me.”

Thor rumbles out a deep chuckle. “I see what you mean. If I understand the terms of your relationship correctly, he doesn’t have the right to offer me his favors.”

“He doesn’t,” Tony says, though his tone is thoughtful rather than annoyed. “But I won’t interfere this time, if you want to take him up on it.”

Thor is silent for several long moments. “Better that I not get a taste for him,” he says finally. “Better that it stay just this, though I would like the chance to do this again, in any way that the two of you together might allow. I do not think I understood his need of the pain. I think that Clint does not need it so much or so deeply.”

“Clint can take more than you think,” Tony says. “But he’s a switch, so he doesn’t always show that part of himself, or at least not as deeply as he feels it sometimes. He can be satisfied with less, though I don’t think it’s because he actually wants less. I think he’s just never found anyone to give it all over to someone else. Unless he has with Coulson. I’ve never asked either of them.”

Bruce says, “If Phil is… is, I don’t know, completely preoccupied with Steve, Clint may lose the closest thing he has to a regular dominant. We can’t let that happen.”

“Coulson wouldn’t let it happen anyway, but if it seems like Clint needs taken in hand occasionally, Natasha and I can manage him,” Tony says, sounding certain.

“I have less experience than you three, but I have taken him in hand some few times, mostly with Natasha’s guidance.” Thor pauses for another long moment. “It was good.”

“Clint is generally good at whatever side he’s operating on,” Tony says. “Don’t let it harsh your subspace, Bruce, we won’t leave Clint without someone to take care of him. Hell, if it comes down to it, Coulson and I are both entirely capable of handling two of you at a time. But Clint has been a switch a long time; he knows where to go to get what he needs.”

“I need to kiss Thor,” Bruce says. It falls out of his mouth without any forethought, but once it has, he finds out that he means it, that it feels right to kiss Thor, to thank him for what he had given Bruce. “Can you fit both of my wrists in one hand?” Bruce asks.

“Without difficulty,” Thor says, and switches so that he’s holding both of Bruce’s wrists in only one of his huge hands. Bruce stretches, feeling his body ache, and then gets up to his knees. Thor goes up to his knees behind him, keeping Bruce’s hands held high over his head.

“Put them behind me,” Bruce says, and Thor shifts his grip into both hands again, lowers them slowly, and then tugs them behind Bruce’s back, where he switches them again into just one hand. Bruce turns to face Thor, and lifts up his face expectantly. Thor squeezes Bruce’s wrists lightly, then draws him in close to his body, and kisses him gently.

Bruce wants more of a kiss than that, but as if Thor can read that in his body, he says, “No more. If I begin, I will not want to stop. Perhaps in time, Tony will gift you to me for a night to do with as I please, but that will not be today. So no more than that.” Bruce can feel Thor’s erection pressing hard against his thigh, and as big as Thor is, the size of it shouldn’t be a surprise, but it still is. Bruce leans into it gently, and Thor shudders lightly, and then gently presses Bruce away from him. “Are you ready to have your hands freed?” Thor asks, his voice deep enough with want to make Bruce shiver a little.

“Not ready, no, but I can accept it now,” Bruce says.

Thor releases his wrists, and Bruce pulls them out from behind his back, so that he can study the marks of Thor’s hands pressed into his skin. Thor’s hands close on his shoulders, and press him gently back across the bed toward Tony, and Bruce goes without argument. He wonders if Tony will, at some point, ‘gift him to Thor for a night to do with as he wishes,’ and then pushes the thought back away and lets the lighter, sweeter feeling of his subspace fill up his mind.

“Thank you, Thor,” Bruce says again. “I needed it. I needed you to do it.”

Thor’s expression brightens with pleasure, most of the need sliding out of his eyes. “I was happy to do it, would be most happy to be invited to do it again. There is something about you when you are under Tony’s lash that I find compelling.”

“Me too,” Bruce agrees, and Thor laughs, deeply and boomingly.

“And that makes all of us,” Tony says, and then draws Bruce into a slow and careful kiss. “Thank you from me, as well. Bruce… he needs to know that he can depend on the people around him. I know it may not seem like much to you, but you showed him that he can depend on you.”

“It seems like quite a lot, actually, for when are we ever so helpless as we are when in the grip of passion,” Thor says. He slides off the edge of the bed and recovers his t-shirt, pulling it on. “I am glad to be amongst those that you trust, no matter how I earned my place there, Bruce,” he says. Then he gives Tony a nod, and slips out of the bedroom, closing the door behind him.

Tony gives Bruce a long look. “You would have let him fuck you?” he asks, but not as though it’s quite a question. More like he just wants it confirmed.

“I would have. His hands are amazing, Tony. If you ever want to be held down, he’s the one to ask.” He stretches out his hands and shows Tony the marks on his wrists. They aren’t deep enough to bruise, but they are reddened with the amount of pressure Thor had kept around them. “There was no way I was getting away from him,” Bruce says, not without some heat. “If he fucks half as well as he held me down, it would be totally worth it.”

“According to Clint and Natasha, he’s a machine, as far as fucking goes,” Tony tells him, smiling a little as Bruce groans at the idea. “Lie back down,” Tony says.

Bruce does it without asking why, and Tony spends the next several minutes tracing the slim welts marking his cock. Bruce shivers with pain and pleasure, too mixed up to even bother to try to sort out.

“If you end up in bed with Natasha within the next few hours, you’re still going to be hurting,” Tony says, as though reminding Bruce.

“I know,” Bruce says again, and can’t hide the fact that he’s half looking forward to it.

“It doesn’t have to be today,” Tony says. “I told her it might not be until tomorrow.”

“Are you feeling neglected?” Bruce asks, feeling his face folding into an unhappy expression. “I can wait a week to sleep with Natasha, if you’d rather,” he offers.

“No, I don’t feel neglected,” Tony says with a low chuckle. “I just don’t want you to feel rushed into anything.”

“I don’t,” Bruce says, smiling a little at Tony’s chuckle. “I feel like it took me forever to get to this point, and I’m in a little bit of a hurry for it to be done, but I don’t have to fuck Natasha for her to feel steady to me. She already does. I don’t know why it’s taken sex with almost everyone else, and not her, but she does.”

“Almost everyone else?” Tony asks.

“It didn’t take sex with Phil,” Bruce says. “I was sure of him by sometime in the middle of the caning.”

“I think that counts as sex for you, Bruce,” Tony says, and cups Bruce’s balls in one hand.

“Maybe,” Bruce agrees. “I guess technically it wasn’t sex with Thor, either. It was just a flogging with Thor in the room.”

“Watching like that counts as sex for Thor,” Tony says. “He sticks mostly to Clint and Natasha for sexual partners, and Jane of course, but he’s extremely into voyeurism. Having it happen practically in his lap is probably some of the best voyeurism he’s ever had.” Tony dips his head and nuzzles Bruce’s balls with his lips. Bruce makes a soft, humming sound of contentment. “I’d fuck you, but then I wouldn’t be able to let you come if you wanted to have anything left for Natasha,” Tony says. “Roll over and let me see your back and ass.”

Bruce rolls over, and his cock immediately burns as it shifts against the sheet beneath it. He moans a little, pressing his cock against the sheets, and Tony gently slaps the back of his thigh.

“Stop that,” he orders brusquely, and Bruce reluctantly stops rutting against the sheets. “Your back is definitely off color, for as soon as it is. I’m betting you’re right about it being mostly gone by day four. Your ass is still looking pretty battered, but I didn’t notice you having any trouble lying down on it.”

“Lying down spreads out the pain,” Bruce says, with his face half buried in a pillow. “My back gets a lot of it, my ass gets some, my thighs just get a little. I can probably sleep on my back tonight.” He looks over his shoulder at Tony. “Do you have anyone else’s rooms set up to record?” he asks.

“Of course not. I’m a reprobate, but not that much of a reprobate. Why?”

“I’d give a lot to know what Phil and Steve are doing right now,” Bruce says, sighing. “If I could get Steve alone, I could probably find out everything, but at the moment he’s practically attached to Phil by the balls.”

“You could always just ask to join them,” Tony suggests, sounding perfectly reasonable, except for a slight edge to his tone.

“Maybe after I’m not quite so attached to you by the balls,” Bruce replies with an edge of humor. “I get it. I really do. You’re still new enough for me that I want to spend every second with you. But I still want to know what they’re doing. I want to know what Steve can take.”

“Coulson isn’t going to take every day off of work, even with a sub as new as Steve to play with,” Tony says easily, and pushes at Bruce’s hip until Bruce rolls back over onto his back. “You can get Steve alone and get him to tell you everything tomorrow.”

“I know,” Bruce sighs. “I’m just impatient. I should have asked him yesterday when we were all together what he and Phil had been up to.”

“You’re better off getting him alone,” Tony says, and runs his fingertips along the welts on Bruce’s cock again, apparently just to make him shiver. “There are most likely things he’ll tell you that he wouldn’t ever admit to anyone else.”

Bruce rolls over onto his side, facing Tony. “You can fuck me, if you want to. I just need to know ahead of time that I’m not going to get to come.” Tony arches his brows, and Bruce shrugs with one shoulder. “I’m okay with orgasm denial. I have a hard time if it happens in the middle of everything, after I’ve started thinking I’m going to get to come, but even then, I can take it, if you’re stern. It hurts my headspace a little, but I can usually go back down. If I know from the beginning that I’m not going to get an orgasm, then I don’t have to worry about it. It works better with some kind of cock and ball bondage, but even just the cockring would work. If I don’t have to worry about it, it can be all about how it feels to be used.” Bruce feels his cheeks heat a little, but pushes on. “Sometimes that can be good.”

“You shouldn’t tempt me,” Tony says. “I might take you up on it. Leave you all wrapped up like a present for Natasha to open up and play with.”

Bruce’s cheeks grow even hotter. “You should get to have me, if you want me,” he says.

Tony laughs. “I do want you. I don’t want to fuck you until you’re crazy with the need to come and deliver you to Natasha in that condition. She’s going to want you mostly untouched, so that she can have you however she wants you. She’ll probably ride you, at least at first, but later she might slip on a strap on and fuck you. She’s done it to me. I don’t want you to be too sore or too worked up to get all you can get from being with her.”

Bruce is a little hung up on the idea of Natasha using a strap on in Tony. “You subbed for her?” he asks.

“No, it was just a mutual exchange of favors,” Tony says. “She’s good with a strap on, though. Better than most women I’ve let try them out on me.”

“Maybe that’s why Pepper likes her,” Bruce says before he can think better of it, but Tony just laughs. 

“At least part of the reason, I’m sure. I’m betting she could deep throat you, if she decided she wanted to. She’s just sexually talented across the board.” Tony brushes a hand through Bruce’s hair, pushing it back from his face. “You said you’ve been with women, but you’ve never subbed for one?” he asks.

“Yeah. Quite a few when I was younger, but then just… just Betty, and she wasn’t the kind of girl you could ask to slap you around a little,” Bruce says. “I loved her, but I knew I was never going to get that from her. And then the serum, and then nothing for years.”

Tony settles down on his side and pulls Bruce in close to him, wrapping an arm around his shoulders. “That part is done,” he says, pressing a kiss to Bruce’s temple. “Even if it were just me that part would be done, but the rest of the team is likely to be beating down your door anytime I’m not around to keep you all to myself.”

“After,” Bruce starts, and then pauses. “After Natasha, does it go back to being only with your permission?” he asks.

“No,” Tony says easily. “Not with the team. Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to be there every time it happens, just to watch you with them, but after this week I’ll go back to working in the lab, and sometimes those will be for long stretches at a time. I can’t even tell you that they’ll just be twelve or fourteen hour days, because I can lose myself in the work, and before I know it I haven’t left the lab in a week. You’ll have your own stuff to work on, your own lab time to take care of, but you’ve always paid a little more attention to eating and sleeping than I have.”

“I have to,” Bruce says. “If I’m hungry or tired, I lose some of my control. I can’t afford to be consumed by work that often.”

“But you know that sometimes I am. I don’t anticipate it happening that often now that I’ve got you waiting for me to surface, but I’d be lying if I told you it would never happen again. So have at them, however you feel like it, whenever you’re feeling needy or just lonely. You’ll probably still have to be the one to get the ball rolling for a while; it hasn’t been long enough for them to feel like they can approach you anytime they want you. That will take some time for them to get through. But as far as the team goes, you have blanket permission. Spend time with whichever of them you want to when I’m not around, doing most anything you want to do.”

“I’m still not sure what I can do with them if you’re not there with me,” Bruce admits. “You make it feel safe. As long as you’re there, everything that happens is safe.”

“I think that will fade, too, once you learn to trust them a little more,” Tony says. “Don’t push it to happen, but don’t fight it back either. And for the record, I think it will be awhile before this is really a problem. It’s not just you that’s attached to me by the balls, right at the moment.”

Bruce grins a little against Tony’s chest. “Are you implying that I have custody of your manhood?” he asks.

“Are you going to pretend I don’t have custody of yours?” Tony counters playfully.

“No, I suppose not,” Bruce admits. “I still wish you’d fuck me.”

“I’m still not going to,” Tony says. “I’ll spend all day tomorrow playing orgasm denial games with you if you want to, but if you’re set on spending time with Natasha today, trust me, you want to go into it as fresh as you can.”

“Then we should get up,” Bruce says regretfully. “As long as we’re in bed together, I’m probably going to keep trying to get you to change your mind.”

“Where are you sitting?” Tony asks.

“3.3 or so, nothing I can’t come up from,” Bruce says easily.

“I expected you to be down longer,” Tony says.

“I would have been, if you’d have fucked me right after,” Bruce admits. “And there was a lot of talking. Talking that required thinking, I mean. I can go down and stay down without a lot of work, but if you actually make me think, I can’t help coming back up.”

“Fair enough,” Tony says. “Want to try watching the Star Trek movie again. We lost you for that one sometime in the middle. It turned out to be pretty good.”

“Why not,” Bruce says, and turns away from Tony’s chest to slide out of the bed and down to his knees. His ass is sore and his cock is a bright ache which is going to be hard to hide in the yoga pants, but maybe it’ll go down once he’s concentrating on the movie. He crawls over to the knee line and stands up to tug his clothes back on, doing his best to arrange his stinging cock as comfortably as possible. He pulls his tank top over his head, and finds Tony checking out his cock through the yoga pants, his t-shirt already back on. 

“You’re right, those don’t hide a damned thing,” Tony says, and curls his hands into fists a little on both sides of his body.

Bruce thinks for several long hopeful seconds that Tony is going to tell him to strip back down and come back to bed, but Tony’s hands slowly loosen, and he just says, “After you,” as he swings open the door.

Bruce makes himself another cup of tea while Tony gets the movie queued up, thinking fondly of the three different kinds of honey Tony had bought because he hadn’t known which kind Bruce liked. He’s going to have to inventory what they have, he supposes, if he intends to do a lot of the cooking, aside from breakfast. His own refrigerator is pretty well stocked, and there’s no sense in letting that food stay downstairs and go to waste. He’ll go down for it later today, or tomorrow, he decides, and get the whiteboard at the same time. Bruce thinks he may have at least two separate kinds of honey in his own kitchen, clover and sage, so he hardly has room to throw stones.

He takes his tea down into the sitting area, and Tony sits on one end of the couch, one knee cocked up against the back, arm thrown out as though merely waiting for Bruce to come settle in against him. Bruce does, because he wants to and he wants Tony to want him to, and Tony starts the movie again.

Bruce wakes up because the closing credits are rolling, and discovers that Tony is asleep leaning back against the arm of the couch as well. His head is tipped toward the back of the couch, and he still has one arm tucked around Bruce’s waist, but he’s definitely sleeping, and has been for a while. Well, at least Bruce hadn’t been the only one to sleep through it this time. Though in Tony’s defense, he’s seen it the whole way through at least once.

They are the only people in the sitting room, and Bruce recognizes that Tony is mostly dependent on his A.I. to tell him the time, but it’s ridiculous not to own a single clock. Maybe Bruce will buy himself a watch. He doesn’t own one because it snaps every time the transforms. Maybe he can get Tony to make him a watch out of the same material his collar is made out of. He wonders if Tony had successfully made pants. He’d forgotten to ask earlier.

“Jarvis, time,” he whispers.

“It is 1:08, Doctor Banner,” Jarvis said, his voice barely above a whisper, and it doesn’t surprise him very much that Tony’s A.I. has the hardware to know that Tony is asleep, so he should keep his voice down.

“I appreciate the thought, but his name is something that just triggers a wake up response in me,” Tony says sleepily. “If you ever really want to get me out of bed, all you have to do is say ‘Jarvis’, and I’m awake.”

“Sorry, Tony,” Bruce says, and he really is, but it’s also kind of funny. The kind of funny that must be stored up and used for an appropriately timed practical joke.

“No big,” Tony says, and yawns. “How far did you manage to get through it this time?”

“I think about as far as last time,” Bruce says. “It’s not that it’s not good. It’s that we keep trying to watch it when I’m halfway in subspace, and I default to sleep if I’m not actively involved in sex or something when I’m in my subspace.”

Tony laughs, but not unkindly. He curls his arm a little tighter around Bruce’s waist, dragging him slightly down and fitting him into the curve of his Tony’s better. Bruce isn’t complaining.

“Are you hungry?” Tony asks. “I can order something.”

“Or I could cook some of your huge stockpile of groceries,” Bruce teases easily. “We’re going to have to keep a list up of how many people are going to be present for each meal, or I’m going to end up cooking entirely too much food for every meal, which will make me cranky about wasting food, Tony.”

“I’ll get one of those calendar things that you stick to the fridge,” Tony says. “People can just add tick marks if they’re going to be present for a meal.”

“However you want to do it is fine with me, as long as it gets done,” Bruce says firmly. “I don’t want to cook for seven if only three people are going to actually show up and eat. It’s wasteful, because I know you people don’t eat leftovers.”

“Thor eats leftovers,” Tony objects.

“Only if you tell Thor that they are in there, and what containers they are in. Mostly Thor just eats whatever doesn’t get put away.” Then, grudgingly, he admits, “Okay, Steve eats leftovers.”

“So does this mean you are cooking lunch, or that you are not cooking lunch?” Tony asks.

Bruce throws an elbow back into Tony’s belly and rolls off the couch and onto his feet. “I’m cooking lunch for seven, but I swear, if the leftovers don’t get eaten, I’m never doing it again,” Bruce says.

Tony oofs out a breath and sags back against the couch, looking wounded. “It’s not my fault people don’t eat leftovers,” he grumbles, but gets up and circles around the kitchen island to capture Bruce with his back to the stove, where he gropes Bruce mercilessly for several minutes which Bruce doesn’t fight back very hard against, and then asks how he can help.

“Get the rice cooker out,” Bruce says.

“Do I have a rice cooker? What does it look like?” Tony asks.

Eventually Bruce manages to bake a package of ten tuna steaks, which probably should have gone in the freezer -- he discovers when he looks in the freezer and finds it crammed full, the reason the tuna steaks hadn’t made it in there -- along with a seasoned rice dish and a squash medley, though he has to make a trip to his own floor to recover vegetables. Apparently they hadn’t been one of the things that Tony had paid much attention to while choosing online groceries.

“Jarvis, tell whomever is in the tower that lunch is ready,” Bruce says a little grumpily, and then announces to Tony that he will cook one meal a day, and it will probably be dinner from now on, but he’s definitely not doing lunch on this scale every day. Tony takes the paring knife gently out of Bruce’s hand and tells him he’s sure that will be fine with everyone. Then he fills a plate for himself and one for Bruce, and takes them over to the sitting area, where he kneels down next to the coffee table and starts cutting the tuna steaks into bite sized pieces.

“Come sit with me,” Tony urges gently, and Bruce does, bringing his tea with him, and then Tony takes turns feeding them each bites of tuna steak and rice, and graciously lets Bruce have all of the squash, and by the time everyone else in the tower shows up for lunch they are halfway through it, and Bruce is much more relaxed. 

“Steve’s shirt is on inside out,” Tony murmurs to Bruce, and they both chuckle quietly about it, but don’t point it out to Steve.

Phil eats with his usual neat precision, but Steve eats like he’s starving, and Bruce starts to feel a little bit better about having cooked a big meal in the middle of the day. Natasha isn’t back yet, but Clint shows up with a tablet computer that he is apparently using to do his paperwork, but which he loses interest in in favor of the food in fairly short order.

None of them bring up the fact that Tony and Bruce are eating in the sitting room, or that Tony is feeding Bruce, or that there’s anything strange going on at all about any of it, and Bruce lets himself relax and enjoy being hand fed by Tony, which he had at some point promised to let Tony do every day if he wanted, but that they haven’t actually managed to do for several days.

Tony announces that they’ll be getting a calendar to hang on the refrigerator, and that Bruce will make dinner most nights as long as you put your name on the calendar if you plan to be present for the food. The group as a whole decides that they can all forage for themselves for lunch.

Natasha shows up just as lunch is wrapping up, and has to warm up her food in the microwave, but doesn’t complain at all, since, as she says, the food more or less appeared by magic as far as she can tell, and she never complains about magic food. She’s smiling at Bruce when she says it, though, so Bruce is pretty sure she knows where it had actually come from. Clint brings her up to date on the meal attendance calendar, and she just shrugs easily, and says, “If it means less take out being delivered to this place, I’ll be sure to be present for dinner every evening.” 

Steve and Thor at the same meal means that there are no leftovers, and Phil and Steve take care of the dishes, with Natasha helping scrub out the pan the fish had baked in, nominally so Clint can keep working on his SHIELD paperwork. Tony carries their dishes out of the sitting area and over to the sink, except for Bruce’s tea mug, which he snatches back out of Tony’s hand when he tries to take it.

Bruce makes himself another cup of tea while the rest of them take care of the cleaning up, and takes himself back into the sitting room with it, where he can kneel on the floor and rest his ass back on his heels almost without any discomfort at all. One by one, they all join him, either with beverages of their own, or just to sit, and Bruce isn’t sure if he’s supposed to do something to entertain them, or pick out a movie for them to watch or what. Clint is still working on his tablet computer, and Phil and Steve are curled up close together on one end of the couch, and seem to be keeping their hands off of one another by sheer force of will. Natasha has helped herself to Bruce’s tea, and Tony has another cup of coffee.

Bruce will have to bring more of his tea up from his suite, he thinks distractedly. What he had brought is his favorite, but he has others that he likes almost as well, and other still that he has only occasionally. He was, realized with something a little like amazement, more or less moving into the penthouse. It might take him a little time to make the move complete, but that is what he is doing. He feels uneasy about it for several moments, then looks over at Tony, and feels that uneasiness shrivel and die.

Whatever else goes on with the rest of the team, no matter how else they end up and in what combination, Bruce is committed to Tony. And wouldn’t change it, even if he could. The knowledge is enough to cause nearly forgotten blossoms of happiness to bloom deep in his chest, and that would be enough, even if none of the others were involved at all.

“Games or movies?” Tony eventually asks, but none of them seem much inclined to do either. Bruce can feel Natasha’s gaze on him, measuring but patient, but just that is enough to make him hard again in his oh-so-revealing yoga pants. She likely can’t see it from where she’s sitting in one of the overstuffed chairs, but Tony, sitting behind where Bruce is kneeling, except on the couch instead of on the floor, can almost certainly see it plainly enough.

Bruce realizes that he has more nerves as pertain to Natasha. Not more fear, exactly, but more nerves. None of the others had been planned out in advance quite like this, and he still isn’t sure what it will be like to be dominated by a woman. Different, he’s sure, but isn’t sure how different. And he’s still hurt enough that she won’t be able to use any of his most effective measures at being taken down. He can’t depend on using pain as a method of acclimating himself to her wants, and isn’t sure what else would work so well and so easily. He tells himself that Tony will be there, and that Tony will know what to do, but is less sure of it than he had been with Tony’s presence with all the rest of the team. He gets the idea that Tony mostly intends to take him to Natasha, give him over to her, and then sit back and watch what happens. He has no real reason to think that, but it’s part of what is worrying him, which he has to admit to himself if to no one else. Is it just that she’s a woman, and he doesn’t trust her to be able to top him as he had the rest of them? He doesn’t want to think that’s so, but isn’t sure what else it could be.

Or is it even simpler than that? Is he just afraid that he won’t know what to do to please a female dominant? Is this more cowardice than anything else?

As though Tony can sense the run of his thoughts, or more likely can see it in his body language, he curls a hand around the back of Bruce’s neck and rubs gently at it. Bruce leans back into the caress almost without thought, letting the feel of it pull his mind away from the greater part of his concern.

Tony will be there. Tony will tell him what to do, if Bruce can’t figure it out on his own. And Natasha herself will be there to direct him. There’s no point in worrying at it so. He feels most of the tension drain out of him, and slides his empty cup onto the coffee table. Natasha has set her cup aside, too, though Tony is still holding his. Of course, Tony would be holding a cup of the coffee in the middle of an apocalypse if he could figure out how to do it.

Bruce twists his body to look at Tony behind him, and sees Tony eyes slide down from where he’d been looking at Natasha, to meet Bruce’s. 

There isn’t even any preamble. He just says, “Ready?” and stands when Bruce nods slowly. Bruce climbs to his feet, and becomes aware of everyone else in the room looking at him, probably noticing how much of his erection his yoga pants do not conceal. Natasha leans forward, her brows arched in question, and Tony offers her a hand up. She smiles and takes it.

Somewhat to Bruce’s relief, Tony leads them to the penthouse bedroom. He isn’t sure what he had expected, maybe that they would have gone to her own suite so she’d have access to her own toys, but it makes more sense that it happen here, where all the rest of it has happened.

Natasha throws an amused glance at the pile of pillows and comforter on the floor from earlier, when Thor had tosses them over the side.

“Rules?” she asks, clearly directing the question toward Tony, rather than toward Bruce.

Tony gives one shouldered shrug. “Pain sends him down the quickest, pain and bondage, but he can’t take anything across his back and ass, and I’m not all that keen on having you mark up his chest. That’s something I want the option of doing later tonight.”

“But an open hand?” she asks, and Tony nods. She turns toward Bruce, then, and says, “Sometime when you’re not quite so new to all of us, sometime when I have more patience, I’ll take you down slow and milk all the pleasure I can get from you over the course of a few hours, Bruce. But I don’t have that kind of patience today. Do you understand?”

Bruce doesn’t, not exactly, though the gets the gist of what she’s saying, so he merely nods. Then she bends and slaps him hard enough to make his head spin and his eyes sting, catching him with a hand in his hair when he starts to fall back, and then slaps him again almost as hard.

“Get up on the bed,” she orders, and Bruce, feeling slow and clumsy from the blows, manages to get from his knees up onto the bed, his cock awake and anxiously awaiting developing events.

“Strip down,” she says, and Bruce goes to work on his clothes, but it’s Tony that ends up doing most of the work, pulling the tank top off over his head, and then pushing him gently back onto the bed to slide the yoga pants down over his ass and off. Bruce tastes his own blood at the corner of his mouth, and is a little shocked at how hard she’d hit him. His head is only barely starting to clear, just in time to watch her strip down out of her well fitting jeans and simple shell blouse, to show that she’s wearing red lace beneath them, and that she doesn’t remove them right away. Bruce carefully levers himself up to his elbows and then to his knees, when she doesn’t object to that, and finds himself just staring at her, all curved and soft where all the men had been hard and angular. Not that he thinks for a moment that she isn’t strong, and if he had, the ringing that still hasn’t quieted in his ears would have been enough to remind him, but in her lace panties and bra, she looks soft, and Bruce badly wants to touch her through them, feel her breasts trapped within the silk and lace, trace the cleft of her sex through the panties. “I was going to ask if you wanted me to leave them on, but I can see it in your face,” she says, voice a throaty purr. Bruce shudders at the sound of it, and he sees from the corner of his eye, that it makes Tony shudder, too, a little. She turns more toward the center of the bed, and looks at the way the cuffs are strung close together. “Tony, can you make these wider apart. I want him spread for me.”

Tony does what she asks without comment, and while he’s still occupied with doing it, Natasha climbs up onto the bed with all the liquid grace of a cat, stalking across it until she’s kneeling in front of Bruce. She leans in, but doesn’t kiss him, but rather catches the skin at the underside of his jawline and bites down hard, bites until Bruce cries out in surprise at the pain, and when she pulls back, his hand rises up on its own to explore the spot of pain she’d left behind. She slaps his hand away before it can get there, and then slaps his face again, though he catches himself before he falls backward this time, and just stares at her with a mixture of fear and arousal that makes his head buzz with want. She laughs, and murmurs, “Not even that much pain, really, isn’t that so?”

Bruce understands the question, and tears are prickling at his eyes again, but he merely shakes his head, acknowledging that it doesn’t take that much pain to put him down.

“Don’t get me wrong, I want to play with you all day sometime, Bruce, and find out all the little ways I can hurt to you that will make you come undone for me, but this first time, I have been waiting too long to have you under me. So stretch out your legs, so that Tony can cuff down your ankles.” Bruce is doing this before she even finishes making the request, which leaves her kneeling in between his spread thighs, and then she slaps him again, harder this time, and so unexpectedly that Bruce falls back against the bed, the one hand that had gone back to catch him slipping ineffectually across the sheets and leaving him lying on his back, staring up at her. She says, “Give me your right hand,” and he holds it out to her without thought or hesitation, and she bends it gently back even as she leans forward on one arm, and slips it into her red lace and silk panties. Bruce’s fingers slide down and open her up without any instruction from Bruce, and she makes a soft, pleased noise. “If you can make me come with just your hand, I’ll ride you for as long as you can take me and make sure you get all that you can get out of it. If you can’t, I’ll still ride you, but I’ll make sure you never get close to coming inside me,” she says in low, serious tones, and Bruce’s fingers twitch inside her panties, and then he’s feeling her cunt, already wet with arousal, and sliding a finger gently into her, and the threat has mostly retreated from his consciousness, because her soft, hot flesh in his hand is all he has attention for. He slides his fingers along the top of her clit, and notes the places that her hips jerk for, though she doesn’t make a single sound of encouragement for him to pick up on. Still, he had been good at this once, and he hasn’t forgotten how. He spreads his fingers and slides them down alongside her opening, feeling her hips snap forward there a little as well, but then slides the tips of two fingers pressed together up across the hood of her clit, pressing harder this time, and is gratified at the way that she sways into his hand and at the little gasp that escapes her throat. She hadn’t been exaggerating, apparently, about having waited too long, because it takes him only a little more work, a little more coordination of fingers and thumb, before she is bucking against his hand and hissing out sharp breaths of pleasure as he drags his fingers across her hotspots and keeps rhythmic pressure against her clit, and her fingernails dig into the skin of his forearm when she comes, her head thrown back, and her breasts rising and falling in the red silk and lace of her bra. Bruce levers himself up while she is still shuddering against his hand, and presses his lips against her nipple, barely hidden beneath the lace. The hand that she isn’t scoring nail marks into his forearm with, she plunges into his hair and holds him against her while he uses first just his lips and tongue to tease the nipple into a tight little peak, and then drags his teeth across it, carefully, but not gently, and he feels her hips quiver against his fingers in her panties still.

“Can you take the bra off?” he asks, and then remembers to add, “I don’t know what mode of address you prefer,” as her sharp gaze slants down to meet his.

“Ma’am,” she says, her eyes going soft for a moment.

“Please, can you take the bra off, ma’am,” Bruce repeas.

“Why?” she asks him.

“Because if you’re going to ride me, I want to see them move freely while you do,” Bruce answers truthfully, and she laughs, high and little wild.

“Oh, he is a treasure,” she says, clearly talking to Tony.

“I’ve found him to be almost endlessly accommodating,” Tony says a little wryly.

“Tony, come tear them off, both bra and panties,” Natasha says, and Bruce feels his eyes widen, but Tony doesn’t seem surprised at all. He curls one hand into a fist along the seam of one side of the bra and jerks hard at it. It pulls Natasha a little sideways, but the fabric parts and slides down off of her arms to land in a puddle on Bruce’s belly. The panties come off even easier, Tony yanks them from the back so that both seams rip at once, and for a moment, Bruce’s fingers are pulled tight against the folds of her cunt. Natasha lets out a high, moaning little sound at that, and Tony pulls the remains of both bra and panties out from her body and tosses them on the floor. Bruce’s cock is a thick, pulsing ache against his belly, and she looks like she knows it, like she knows every secret thing he has ever thought, but she just says, “Next time, Tony can fuck you while you fuck me, but this time I just want to ride you.”

“Whatever you want, ma’am,” Bruce says, meaning it completely. His fingertips are still pressed into the slick folds of her cunt, and he might have said almost anything just then.

She catches his left wrist and tugs it up above his head and buckles the cuff there securely around it. Quickly, before she can do the same to the right, Bruce brings his fingers up to lick the taste of her away from his fingertips, and she laughs again, that same bright, wild sound, but she lets his suck the taste of her from his fingers and thumb before she captures his right wrist and cuffs it down.

Then she bends to explore the length of his cock with both of her own hands, tracing the faint lines that still show from the flogging, her eyes bright and eager at the sight of them. “How fast will he come?” she asks, also clearly of Tony, rather than of Bruce.

Tony says, “If you tell him he can’t come before you start, he’ll probably be able to hold back for you for a good long while. I have a cockring you can use it you want it. He can’t come at all in that.” 

“Will the pain of the cropping stop him from coming?” she asks.

“Natasha, I haven’t found so far that the pain of _anything_ will keep him from coming.” Tony sounds both pleased and a little exasperated.

Natasha’s eyes gleam. “If I tell you not to come, can you hold off for me until I’m done with you?” she asks Bruce, her tone gently demanding.

“I will do my best not to,” Bruce says. “My best has been good enough in the past, but except for this last few days, it’s been a long time for me, and I’m not sure how good it is now.”

She considers, and then gives him a lopsided smile. “I’d make you wear the cockring, I think, except that I don’t expect to last all that long myself, with as long as I’ve waited already. Just don’t disappoint me.”

She eases up his body and bends down to kiss him, her breasts brushing against his chest. When she pulls back, Bruce grates out, “I’ll try, I swear,” and that’s the best he can do. 

The skin of his cock is still tender enough to feel as though it’s sizzling a little when she runs her fingernails along the bottom of it, but she doesn’t tease any further than that. She tugs him up into the right angle, and then sinks down on him, wet and slick from her orgasm, gasping out a breath and pausing with him only partway in before her back shudders and dips and she clenches tightly around him, her interior muscles clamping down around him in heady, rhythmic pulses that make Bruce want to drag himself free of his bondage and flip her, pound all the way into her and feel her clench around the whole length of him. He doesn’t do that, of course, can’t do it, so merely lies as still as he can beneath her while she comes around his cock, and he is even so good he doesn’t let his hips get out of his control and rock up to push more of him into her. She blinks a little, once her breathing slows, and then she smiles at him, slow and wicked, and says, “I knew you were big, I’ve seen you, and Clint can’t keep his mouth shut, but seeing it and feeling it are two different things.”

Bruce is appalled to find himself blushing at those words, and she laughs as she sinks the rest of the way down the length of his cock, her nails scraping gently across the skin of his chest, the combination of which makes Bruce shudder and this time he can’t quite keep his hips as still, and they jerk up a little, as though seeking any part of her he has not yet been able to enter. Her breasts heave a little as she settles down onto him, soft looking, and tipped with nipples the color of rose petals. Bruce wants to touch them, taste them, and realizes abruptly the huge gulf of difference between having had sex with a woman, and having a woman dominate him. The things he had always taken for granted at being with a woman are off limits to him unless she allows it. He can’t touch her breasts or the sweet curve of her hip, can’t bury his face between her thighs and have at her with his lips and tongue until she pulls at his hair, can’t have any of it unless she allows it, and he wants to do all of those things. 

Natasha is gorgeous and perfect, and he wants to love her the way he knows how to love a woman, and not being allowed to do that is almost more agonizing than the idea that he might not last for her, that he might in some way disappoint her, the idea that he may never get to do any of those things brings real tears to his eyes, not just pain tears at being slapped, but tears of genuine distress. Tony is there abruptly, hand curling into one of his, his face folded into lines of concern, but Bruce doesn’t know how to tell Tony the things he is thinking.

“I want to touch her,” he tries. “I want to go down on her, I want to touch her breasts and the place where her waist becomes her hip and the sway at the base of her back. I want to and I can’t. I have never, with a woman, I have always been able to have what I wanted.”

Natasha catches his other bound hand, and squeezes it in one of hers. “I promise, you’ll get to do all of those things, Bruce. Just not this time. Just not this first time, when I need you to be totally mine to use as I please. Can you do that for me, Bruce? Can you just be mine for right now?”

And just her voice is enough to ease him down from the desperation of things that he wants so badly but cannot have yet, just knowing that some time she will let him, but that is all for later. Now it is just about her having him as she wants him, and it isn’t as if he doesn’t want to give that to her, as well. He does. He wants her to have all that she wants from him.

“Yes, ma’am,” he says, voice squeezed a little tight with the tears that are tightening his throat and have escaped down his cheeks. “I’m sorry. I just. It’s never been like this with a woman. I’ve always been able to do everything. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry, and I will definitely let you do everything you want at some point in the near future, but just for now, just for right now, let go of what you are used to having, and give up to me what I want from you,” she says, and though her voice is soft and gentle, Bruce hears the demand in it, almost a command, it is so firmly worded.

“Yes, ma’am,” he agrees. “I want you to have what you want.”

“I knew you did,” she murmurs, and leans up to kiss him again, and as she does, her hips start to rock in a slow and steady rise and fall of her body. She is only the third person he’s fucked in at least six years, and she feels amazing, tight and wet and hot, her body rocking against his makes him desperate to rock back into her thrusts, but he knows better, and when she draws her mouth away from his, she sits up, her hands braced on his chest with her breasts thrust out before her, and she begins to ride him in earnest, the muscles of her thighs flexing and drawing her up his shaft and then lowering her down, all in long, gliding motions, and her eyes are wide and dazed looking, her mouth wet and lips slightly parted, and she twists a little from side to side as she takes him in again and again, so that her body feels like a flexing hand inside, if a hand could be as tight and wet and hot as she is, if I hand could ever feel anywhere near as good. 

He holds back the soft cries that want to escape him, until one of them finally does, and he sees her dazed eyes flash a little with lust and triumph, and then he doesn’t even try, just lets every sound she wrings from him fall out from between his parted lips, and she whispers that he’s good for her as her nails score his chest almost deep enough to draw blood, and hard enough to make him arch his back helplessly up into the pain, which makes her cry out and slide her hand down between her thighs, her fingertips pressing in swift little circles against her clit, and Bruce cannot stop watching any part of her, from the dazed heat in her eyes to her rose-tipped breasts, from the flexing of her thighs to the sight of her fingers slipping between the copper curls between her thighs to work her clit. He feels his body growing tight and his balls clenching with need, but he also senses her need, and is almost sure that this won’t be as hard as it has been sometimes in the past, he won’t have to wait so long or fight against the need to come so hard, because he can already feel her fluttering around his cock, and her head has rocked back on her neck, her eyes closed, and her thighs are shuddering, but he still isn’t expecting her to shout, “Now, Bruce!” and it takes him just a moment to let go of all the ways he’d been holding back. 

He feels himself jerk and spasm inside her body, and she cries out, as if that had been the only thing she had needed to feel to get to where she was going, and her cunt clenches and twists around him, milking his cock, and her nails scrape down his chest in painful, wonderful lines that burn like fire and then tingle madly after they’re laid down. She comes for a long time, at least a minute of her body rocking against his and her fingers pressing against her clit and her back bowed into an arc that thrusts her breasts forward as though they are yearning for his hands, and when she shudders to a finish, she wilts down across his chest breathing fast and light, and presses her cheek against his chest, and murmurs, “That was perfect, you were perfect, and I want to let you touch me everywhere, and I want to touch you everywhere, and I want to take a pony whip to you and I want to hear you really cry for me, but for this time, this first time, you were perfect, Bruce.”

The idea of her taking a pony whip to him is enough to make him jerk a little where he’s still buried inside her, and she shivers a little as though she can feel it. Tony uncuffs his wrists, and because Bruce is pretty sure he’s allowed now, he lowers his arms and wraps them around her, where she feels downright petite compared to the people Bruce usually has his arms around. He manages an unsteady, “Thank you, ma’am,” and she laughs again, that same bright and wild laugh from earlier, and sits partway up against his chest to look down into his face.

“You’re going to be so much fun,” she tells him, as if she’s imparting a great secret to him. “As soon as you’re ready, whenever you think you can, make sure to let me know.”

“I will,” is all he can think of to say, and she eases herself up out of his arms and then off of his cock, and slides down onto the bed to lie beside him. Tony, still fully dressed, climbs up to lie down on the other side of Bruce, and the two of them look at him from over the top of Bruce’s body. 

“How long until you’re willing to share him again?” she asks, but she asks it like she knows it’s not the real question, that the things she had said to Bruce had been closer to the reality of the situation.

“When things settle, and when he feels ready for it,” Tony answers anyway. “We’ll have to wait a while and see how it goes. For a while, it may always be the two of us. He has to feel safe to be in good headspace for sex, and he doesn’t feel safe yet without me with him.”

“Yeah, and including you is going to be such a chore, Tony,” she says, wrinkling her nose at him, her tone pure sarcasm.

“You’re a cruel woman, Natasha,” Tony says. “No, really, I’m cut to the quick.”

“I can tell,” she says, wrinkling her nose again. “When you get tired of his shit, Bruce, you can come live in my suite with me.”

Bruce huffs out a laugh, and Tony slips a hand under him and pinches his tender ass. “Ow, Tony!” Bruce objects, but gives up on being indignant at the look of playful innocence Tony is giving him. “Jerk,” he mutters under his breath, but this time, Tony only strokes a hand down Bruce’s chest, which is still a little tender with the marks of Natasha’s nails on it.

Natasha says, “I wonder what Phil and Steve have been getting up to,” and Bruce throws Tony a triumphant look.

“I knew I wasn’t the only one that wanted to know,” Bruce says.

“I never said I didn’t want to know,” Tony says. “I just said I didn’t have any cameras set up in anyone else’s suites.”

Natasha laughs. “Okay, someone help me find my clothes,” she says, and slides over the the side of the bed and slips off onto the floor. Bruce’s feet are still cuffed down, and Tony doesn’t make any move to help, which Natasha finds less than amusing. Eventually, she’s dressed again in jeans and the simple shell top, though without any undergarments, as those she’d come with are pretty much useless. She bends and kisses Bruce’s cheek lightly, and Bruce can smell her hair and the light sweat of exertion, and feels his cock starting to harden again just at that scent. She gives Tony the finger, and then lets herself out of the bedroom, most likely to go take a shower and recover clean underwear at least.

After she leaves, Tony rouses himself enough to uncuff Bruce’s ankles, and then lies down next to him again in bed.

“If I did want to have at your front with something tonight, Bruce, is your back healed enough for you to deal with both?” Tony asks after a few minutes.

“As long as you don’t try to cane my front, I’m pretty sure it will be fine,” Bruce says dryly.

“Why so insolent for a submissive?” Tony asks in a long suffering voice.

“I am not insolent,” Bruce says comfortably. “Clint is insolent. I’m just occasionally naughty.”

“Fair enough,” Tony agrees. “How do you feel. I get the idea that Nat was harder for you than you thought she would be.”

“Not exactly harder, just not what I know how to do with women,” Bruce tries to explain. “Once I realized that I didn’t have to do any of those things unless she told me to, I was more or less okay again.”

“But you wanted to,” Tony says seriously. “You were nearly in tears.”

Bruce appreciates Tony’s attempts to save his feelings, but knows for a fact that he had actually been in tears. “I don’t know how to explain it. It was almost like subbing for the first time, when you don’t know how to do anything. All I knew how to do with a woman were things that I wasn’t allowed to do, so I didn’t know what to do. She talked me down. It helps to know that she probably will let me do all the things I know how to do to her at some point. But I was very confused there for a few minutes.”

“She probably will come after you with a pony whip sometime,” Tony tells him. “It’s her favorite tool.”

“As long as she knows how to use it, I’m more or less okay with that,” Bruce says. “Maybe not just yet, but at some point.”

“She knows how to use it,” Tony assures him. “She taught me how to use one.”

“High praise,” Bruce says, grinning a little.

“It may not sound like it, but it really is. She’s better at it than anyone I’ve ever seen. As good with it as Coulson is with the cane,” Tony says.

Bruce thinks about that for a few long seconds. “I’ve had them used on me a couple of times, but not frequently. If you think it’s something I should experience, I trust your judgement.”

“You should. You should go to bed with her just for sex, let yourself get drunk on her body, and then let her tie you to the wall and take a pony whip to you. If you do, I recommend you let her use a belt on you to help you keep your feet. Once she gets that far with anyone, they almost always need a belt to keep their feet.” Tony drags a pillow down and tucks it under his head. “But do it all in one day. Let her overwhelm you, once you get to the point where you’re comfortable with the team like that one on one. It’ll be well worth it.”

“I thought you hadn’t subbed for Natasha,” Bruce says.

“I haven’t. I was just a witness to the pony whipping portion of the evening. But Clint could barely stay upright, even when she got him pegged up against the wall at first. I only found out from him later that it had started out as just sex and had worked its way into something more.” Tony smiles. “I was always pretty sure Clint could take more than I’d ever given him, just from seeing him take that from her. We just hadn’t ever agreed to anything really hard core between the two of us before.” Tony grins wickedly this time. “You should see Clint and Darcy after they finish with each other. I think one of the best things about getting Jane to come work for me would be the fact that she would bring Darcy with her, and Clint and Darcy spark off of each other like flint and steel.”

“I keep asking myself how all of this was going on and I never managed to notice any of it,” Bruce says.

Tony gives him a long look. “You mostly kept to yourself, Bruce. You’d come out of your lab for lunch sometimes, but you almost always had breakfast and dinner on your own floor. It wasn’t so much that anyone was trying to hide it from you as it was that you just weren’t around to see it. The only times you came to hang out were movie nights, and we were all more or less on our best behavior. I knew what you wanted, maybe even needed, but there was no way to get you to give into it without allowing you to come to me and then taking just enough advantage every time that I was slowly getting to be able to stand closer and closer to you. I don’t know how long I would have waited. As long as it took, probably. But I’m glad you didn’t make me wait much longer.”

“I’m sorry,” Bruce says, and he is, but he’s so much happier now than he’d been just a week before that he can’t help but be grateful as well as sorry.

“Don’t be sorry. We got here, didn’t we? There’s no point to being sorry now. Besides that, even if I’d been able to have you months sooner, I still think it would have taken you quite a bit more time than it has to let the rest of the team get close to you. You were ready, when I finally cornered you and laid it out. I think that’s what it really comes down to. You were surprised, but you were ready to take the step.” Tony throws a leg over one of Bruce’s thighs. “And I obsess. I know I do. I had to make sure, too, that you weren’t just a passing obsession. That would have been worst of all. That would have been exactly what you were so afraid of happening to begin with. I couldn’t do that to you.”

Bruce turns over onto his side and slides an arm across Tony’s waist. “How did you know what I was afraid of happening?”

“Because it’s the same thing I was afraid of happening to me,” Tony says seriously. “People don’t stay with me, with a few rare exceptions. They enjoy the dazzle of being with me for a few weeks or a month, but in the end, I’m always too _me_ for them to want to stay. You wanted to stay, no matter how much of me I showed you. The rest of the team, too, though there were some rocky spots, but no matter how much of me I showed you, you still wanted to be around me.”

“If your online grocery shopping didn’t scare me away, I think you’re stuck with me for good,” Bruce says dryly.

“I’ll do better,” Tony says. “I’ll shop with a list. I promise.”

Bruce smiles. “Don’t worry about it. It’s one of your charming eccentricities.”

Tony catches Bruce by the O ring on his collar and tugs possessively at it, rocking Bruce’s head back. “I don’t know about charming, but I’ve got lots of eccentricities,” he says, and Bruce laughs and bends to kiss him with the shape of Tony’s smile still pressed up against his lips.


End file.
